India on Saturday reminded Pakistan of what it must do to avoid being cast away to Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) black list. Modi government’s reminder to Pakistan PM Imran Khan can be considered timely as Islamabad was warned of the possibility by FATF – the Paris-based global body working to curb terror financing- as recently as Friday.

Highlighting Pakistan’s continued failure to complete the anti-terror measures listed in FATF’s action plan items, the Ministry of External Affairs reminded Islamabad that global concerns related to terrorism and terrorist financing emanating from its soil must be addressed before FATF’s September 2019 deadline.

“We expect Pakistan to take all necessary steps to effectively implement the FATF Action Plan fully within the remaining time frame i.e. by September 2019 in accordance with its political commitment to the FATF and take credible, verifiable, irreversible and sustainable measures to address global concerns related to terrorism and terrorist financing emanating from any territory under its control,” said Ravish Kumar, the spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs.

FATF, the Paris-based global body, is working to curb terrorism financing and money laundering and has expressed disappointment with Pakistan’s failure to implement a 27-point action plan to curb terror financing and money laundering in order to effectively disable banned terrorist outfits, LeT, JeM, in the country.

Pakistan is currently on FATF’s ‘Grey list’ of countries whose domestic laws are considered weak to tackle the challenges of money laundering and terrorism financing but the global body indicated Friday that Pakistan’s continued failure on anti-terror front may lead to the FATF taking the ‘next step’- widely seen as relegation to the ‘Black list’ of nations.

In a statement issued at the conclusion of its plenary meeting in Orlando, Florida, the FATF expressed concern “that not only did Pakistan fail to complete its action plan items with January deadline; it also failed to complete its action plan items due May 2019”.

The FATF “strongly” urged Pakistan to swiftly complete its action plan when the last set of action plan items are set to expire.

“Otherwise, the FATF will decide the next step at that time for insufficient progress,” the international financial body said leaving a strong warning to Pakistan.

The multilateral watchdog had placed Pakistan on its “grey list” in June last year for failing to counter fund-raising by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

During an assessment in February this year, FATF said Pakistan had made “limited progress” in curbing terror financing and failed to show proper understanding of risks posed by banned groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Experts who conducted ground inspections concluded that while Pakistan had done a lot to align its domestic laws with international counter-terror obligations, it had failed to do enough on the ground to curb fund-raising or freeze assets of eight terror groups, including LeT, JeM, Jamaat-ud-Dawah, Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Haqqani Network and the Taliban. The experts also said that Islamabad “does not demonstrate a proper understanding of Pakistan’s transnational TF (terror-financing) risk”.

Islamabad must demonstrate to FATF by October this year that the remedial actions and sanctions it is putting in place are actually applied in cases of terror financing violations, and that these actions have an effect on compliance by financial institution.

In essence, Imran Khan’s government will have to present ample evidence that it has effectively chocked the internationally designated terrorists like JeM’s Masood Azhar, LeT’s Hafiz Saeed of all financial and operational resources.

Pakistan repeated on Friday that it was committed to taking measures needed to implement the action plan agreed with the FATF in order to come out of the grey list, India’s statement today is likely to remind Islamabad that it still has a long way to go.

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