ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s performance on the action plan given by the FinancialAction Task Force (FATF) has reportedly satisfied the global watchdog, itemerged Thursday.
The Pakistani team, headed by Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar,has “defended country’s compliance report during the joint group of FATFmeeting held at Beijing, China,” *The News* reported.
“The watchdog showed satisfaction over Pakistan’s report of compliance,”the publication said.
The Indian side had to face embarrassment as the US and European countriesdid not extend their support to their “tough but mostly irrelevantquestions” during the joint group meeting.
“The ongoing meeting went very well. This time the attitude of the US andthe European Union countries remained supportive and except India no othercountry raised questions on Pakistan’s compliance,” *The News* claimed.
The Pakistani team will remain standby to further defend the report ifrequired to do so today (Thursday). “If the joint group of FATF demandedany further documents or annexures of any point, the Pakistani side wouldbe ready to reply to them,” according to *The News*.
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Official sources said that Pakistan would now focus on mustering up morediplomatic support of voting members of FATF’s plenary meeting. In order toavoid the blacklist, Pakistan requires the support of three countries. Forcoming out of grey and landing into the white list, Islamabad needs 12votes out of a total of 39.
There is a possibility of a third scenario that Pakistan might continueinto the grey list for another 3 to 6 month period. After getting thesupport of the US, the chances have emerged that Pakistan might be excludedfrom the grey list and placed into the safest white list.
*Originally published in www.thenews.com.pklink*
