Global anti-terror body FATF pans Pakistan, gives 4 months to fix systems

If blacklisted, Islamabad faces financial consequences and economic setbacks at a time when its economy is facing a balance of payment crisis.

Updated on: Jul 12, 2020, 16:00:19 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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The Financial Action Task Force, the global terror financing and money laundering watchdog, has severely indicted Pakistan for failing to deliver on most of its 27 targets and warned that the global body would be forced to blacklist it if Islamabad does not set its house in order within the next four months, according to two people familiar with the developments.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly last month, PM Khan had accused India of attempting to get his country blacklisted by the FATF which he signalled, could ruin the country. (Reuters)

“The FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2020. Otherwise, should significant and sustainable progress not be made across the full range of its action plan by the next Plenary, the FATF will take action which could include the FATF calling on its members and urging all jurisdictions to advise their financial institutions to give special attention to business relations and transactions with Pakistan,” the global anti-terror financing body said.

An Indian counter-terror official said the finding and the strong comments were a clear indictment of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s track record, irrespective of his many commitments, to fight terror with any modicum of seriousness.

Watch: Narrow escape for Pakistan from FATF blacklist, given 4 month lifeline

If blacklisted, Islamabad would have faced financial consequences and economic setbacks at a time when its economy is facing a balance of payment crisis. It is a prospect that has had Prime Minister Imran Khan concerned. In his speech at the UN General Assembly last month, PM Khan had accused India of attempting to get his country blacklisted by the FATF which he signalled, could ruin the country.

Iran continues to be on the FATF blacklist but the FATF statement is much harsher this time. People familiar with the development said the European consensus against Iran appeared to be weakening with some countries calling for action against Iran if it fails to deliver by February 2020.

“If before February 2020, Iran does not enact the Palermo and Terrorist Financing Conventions in line with FATF standards, then FATF will fully lift the suspension of counter-measures and call on all members to apply effective counter-measures,” a FATF document said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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