The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FO) rejected on Monday the recent comment by the Indian Defense Minister that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) could "blacklist Pakistan to finance terrorism in any moment".
According to a press release issued by the FO spokesperson, Rajnath Singh's statement "reinforces Pakistan's concerns, repeatedly highlighted to FATF members, about India's attempts to politicize FATF procedures to promote its narrow objectives and partisans. "
According to Indian media reports, on October 1, Singh said: "The FATF may [at] at any time on Pakistan's blacklist for terrorist financing
The FO press release added that "India's relentless smear campaign against Pakistan and brazen partisanship" questioned his credentials to be co-chair of the Joint Asia-Pacific Group that reviews Pakistan's progress in implementing the country's action plan FATF.
"Our concerns in this regard have been previously pointed out to the members of the FATF," the FO spokesman said, while expressing hope that the FATF will take note of India's "continuing malicious campaign" against Pakistan and reject any attempt to politicize FATF procedures.
"It is important that the FATF ensure that the process remains fair and impartial," the press release said.
The clarification of FO comes a week before the FATF review meetings in Paris between October 13 and 18, which will determine whether Pakistan should remain or leave the gray list or be blacklisted.
Read: India tries to push Pakistan to the FATF blacklist: Prime Minister
In an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera TV In September, Prime Minister Imran Khan alleged that New Delhi was trying to bankrupt Pakistan and take it to the FATF blacklist.
Meanwhile, a Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) published on Sunday by the Asia Pacific Group (APG), a regional affiliate of the FATF, showed that Pakistan failed to comply with four of the APG's 40 recommendations on the effectiveness of the system against money laundering and the fight against terrorist financing.
Read: Significant improvements in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
Pakistan's performance-based report to October 2018 showed that the country fully complied "only" in an aspect related to the secrecy laws of financial institutions. It was found that "partially complied" with 26 recommendations and "largely complied" with nine others.
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1509511/fo-rejects-indian-defence-ministers-claim-fatf-can-blacklist-pakistan-at-any-time