ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar on Saturday expressed confidence that Pakistan will formally exit the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) soon and vowed that a subsequently white-listed Pakistan will “never again” make the mistakes it made in the past regarding its response to terrorism.
Khar was addressing a press conference following an announcement last night by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that Pakistan has “substantially completed its two action plans” and would be removed from the grey list after it passes the on-site visit to assess the implementation of Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism.
Responding to a question by a journalist on whether a “blind eye” would be turned to certain religious groups operating freely in the country and promoting “hate mongering” and whether this is considered an internal issue, Khar said: “Nothing remains an internal issue when it has problematic repercussions.”
The state minister said that the outcome announced by the FATF yesterday was enabled through “the comprehensive reforms that have been carried out in Pakistan in the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) domain and the sustained momentum of our efforts and the results of those efforts”.
“Because as you can see, the first action plan took us much longer while this one was completed before the set timeline and this was something which was very well recognised throughout the plenary by all the members,” she said.
“Pakistan’s positive and speedy progress was greatly appreciated and welcomed by FATF members,” the state minister for foreign affairs added.
Khar said that FATF has acknowledged the completion of both action plans, the progress made and recognised Pakistan’s commitment to improve its AML/CFT position.