FATF report pans ‘greylisted’ Pakistan, says not taken ‘sufficient’ steps

Financial Action Task Force, or FATF’s Asia affiliate, the Asia-Pacific Group (APG) report also skewered Pakistan’s central bank and its market regulator for not having a clear understanding of terror financing.

Updated on: Oct 7, 2019, 11:48:30 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Islamabad “has not taken sufficient” measures to fully implement the United Nations Security Council resolution 1267 action against all listed individuals and entities particularly those associated with Hafiz Saeed-founded terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, according to the latest report of the global anti-terror financing group.

The stinging report comes ahead of FATF’s big plenary meeting between October 13 and 18 where Pakistan, already greylisted for its inability to curb terror financing, faces the possibility of being blacklisted. (AP FILE)

Financial Action Task Force, or FATF’s Asia affiliate, the Asia-Pacific Group (APG) report also skewered Pakistan’s central bank and its market regulator for not having a clear understanding of terror financing.

“Pakistan faces significant risks of terror financing both from legitimate and illegitimate sources” as well as weak, regulation and supervision of certain sectors, the report said.

The stinging report comes ahead of FATF’s big plenary meeting between October 13 and 18 where Pakistan, already greylisted for its inability to curb terror financing, faces the possibility of being blacklisted.

It is a prospect that has had Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan worried. Khan, speaking at the UN General Assembly session last month that he used to target New Delhi, had complained that India was pushing Pakistan into the FATF blacklist that would lead to sanctions on his country.

Khan told the UN General Assembly that it was on account of India’s role at FATF meetings that he backed out of his peace overtures towards India. “So they were trying to bankrupt us economically, so that’s when we pulled back. And that’s when we realised that this government is on an agenda ... to push Pakistan to disaster,” Khan told the UN.

Indian counter-terror officials say New Delhi did not expect the FATF to go as far as blacklisting Pakistan, irrespective of the findings of the Asia-Pacific Group’s Mutual Evaluation Report. The FATF president’s chair this year has gone to Beijing’s Chinese banker Xiangmin Liu, who is expected to put his weight behind protecting Pakistan’s interests.

Besides, Turkey and Malaysia - two countries that had supported Pakistan’s narrative over Kashmir in recent weeks - could also help out Islamabad at FATF deliberations. Back in June 2018 when Pakistan was being placed in the greylist, China and Turkey had sought to block this listing. China eventually had withdrawn its objections.

The latest report of the multilateral financial watchdog noted that there were a large number of areas where Pakistan was yet to comply on the 40 parameters that had been listed for it.

Pakistan, the report said, should adequately “identify, assess and understand” its money laundering/terror financing risks including risks associated with terrorist groups “operating in Pakistan” such as Al Qaeda, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

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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