Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, the only country that supported Pakistan in the plenary meeting of the global watchdog against money laundering, had proposed a special visit to Islamabad to make an on-site assessment of the implementation of the Imran Khan government to plug the holes in its legal framework to curb the financing of terrorism.
The suggestion in plenary last week before February 2021 was seen as an effort to let Pakistan get out of trouble for now and immediately whitelist it, but it was not endorsed by any other country, including the ‘allies for everything. climate ‘China and Malaysia. Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia have been trying to emerge as a radical new Islamic axis to overshadow the established order led by Saudi Arabia.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ultimately decided to keep Pakistan on its gray list, which comprises countries whose controls on terrorist financing are deemed inadequate and placed “under increased scrutiny.” He also received a strong warning from FATF Chairman Marcus Pleyer, who told Islamabad that it couldn’t take forever to turn himself in.
Indian counterterrorism officials said Turkey’s failed attempt to remove Pakistan from the gray list reflected a lack of diplomatic support in member states for Pakistan, which India often describes as an epicenter of terrorism in South Asia.
“It appears that Pakistan’s efforts to get off the gray list have reached a dead end, not unless substantive and non-cosmetic measures are taken to tighten control over terrorist financing over the next four months,” said one senior counter-terrorism official in New Delhi. . Prime Minister Imran Khan, already facing a combined opposition offensive, had not said a word about the FATF decision.
The global dirty money regulator is scheduled to review the state of Pakistan again in 4 months.
If the FATF plenary concludes that Pakistan has completed all 27 action items, the watchdog will move to the next stage to send a team to Islamabad to assess whether the implemented measures are working effectively. Only if Pakistan passes this test would the FATF consider letting Pakistan get off the gray list.
Indian officials said this will be a big question that Islamabad is unlikely to be able to answer, particularly given the deep ties between the terror groups and the establishment that uses them as tools to serve its interests in Jammu and Kashmir and Afghanistan.
Enacting laws is the easy part. Enforcing them on the ground will be difficult, said an Indian official, pointing to accusations by the opposition that Imran Khan did everything he could not to get off the FATF gray list, but to arm himself with laws to target opposition leaders.
“Pakistan will be unlikely to crack down on the terrorist groups that the establishment has conceived, birthed and nurtured,” said a second official. As an example, he pointed to the long list of UN-designated terrorists who have freedom of movement in Pakistan.
“The UNSC 1267 Sanctions List has 130 Pakistani names, which it claims it can only locate 19,” added the second official quoted above, wondering if the Pakistani Army, which according to the opposition has remote control of the government, can throw the terrorist leadership behind bars.
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