Islamabad: Pakistan has asked the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international terror financing watchdog, to remove India as co-chair of its Asia-Pacific Joint Group, the Finance Ministry said Saturday.
Currently placed on the FATF’s ‘grey list’, Pakistan has been scrambling in recent months to avoid being added to a list of countries deemed non-compliant with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations by the Paris-based FATF, a measure that officials here fear could further hurt its economy.
In a letter addressed to FATF President Marshall Billingslea, Pakistan Finance Minister Asad Umar asked him to appoint any other member country besides India as co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Joint Group ‘to ensure that (the) FATF review process is fair, unbiased and objective’, the finance ministry said in a statement.
The Joint Group is a sub-body of the FATF’s International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of the Asia Pacific Group. Pakistan is a member of the APG and its case is being presented before the FATF by the APG. India’s Financial Intelligence Unit’s (FIU) director general is the co-chair of the Joint Group.
“India’s animosity towards Pakistan was well known and the recent violation of Pakistan’s airspace and dropping of bombs inside Pakistani territory was another manifestation of India’s hostile attitude,” Umar wrote in the letter.
Referring to India’s efforts of isolating Pakistan globally and call for the country’s blacklisting during the ICRG meeting February 18, Umar said, “Indian presence among the evaluators and as Co-chair of the Joint Group would undermine the impartiality and spirit of the ‘peer review’ process.”
“We firmly believe that India’s involvement in the ICRG process will not be fair towards Pakistan,” he wrote.
PTI
