ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is planning to actively lobby member countries of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to counter arch-rival India’s influence and ensure that the watchdog’s review process is not skewed by New Delhi against Islamabad, officials and experts said.
A suicide attack in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that was claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group chilled long frosty relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, with India accusing Pakistan of failing to crack down on militant groups operating from its soil, and saying it would work to isolate Islamabad diplomatically.
On Tuesday Pakistan’s Minister for Finance Asad Umar told reporters he had called for India to be removed as co-chair of FATF’s Asia Pacific Group (APG) review.
“It is a justified demand for removing India from the co-chair of FATF’s Asia Pacific Group (APG) review and now FATF as an organisation will have to take a decision on it,” Umar told reporters, adding that India was lobbying against Pakistan at FATF and pushing other members to put Pakistan on a blacklist.
“India had submitted its unilateral report and abused the FATF process for political purposes,” Umar said.
In a letter addressed to the FATF president last week, Umar said Pakistan firmly believed that “India’s involvement in the ICRG (International Cooperation Review Group) process will not be fair towards Pakistan” and demanded a re-composition of the group.
“Pakistan is left with no option but to start lobbying FATF members against India’s bias towards Islamabad,” Dr. Abid Qayyum Sulehri, a member of the government’s Economic Advisory Council, told Arab News on Tuesday.
FATF, a global body created to counter terrorism financing and money laundering, last June put Pakistan on a “grey list” of nations with inadequate controls over such activities.
Sulehri said Pakistan was taking all necessary measures to fulfill the requirements of the global watchdog to get off the grey list and it was now the “responsibility of all FATF members to ensure that the platform is not hijacked by Pakistan’s rival,” he added, referring to India.
Dr. Vaqar Ahmed, joint executive director at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), said Pakistan had raised objections with FATF over India’s hostility in June 2018 and February this year, but “it all fell on deaf ears.”
He suggested the government initiate “active lobbying” among 11 members of the APG, including China, Canada, Japan, Australia, the US, Singapore and Malaysia, to “expose Indian hostility against Pakistan.”
“Diplomacy and active diplomacy is the only solution at the moment to counter Indian propaganda and get us off the FATF grey list,” he said.
