Qureshi hopeful country will get out of FATF grey list next month.

ISLAMABAD -- Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Thursday expressed the hope that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global illicit financing watchdog, would delist Pakistan from its grey list at its next plenary meeting.

The meeting is scheduled to take place virtually from Feb 22 to 25.

Briefing the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, the foreign minister said he was optimistic that no politically motivated decision would be taken by the FATF.

The meeting was chaired by Chairman of Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed.

Pakistan has been on the FATF's 'grey list' for deficiencies in its counter-terror financing and anti-money laundering regimes since 2018.

In its last meeting held in October last year, the watchdog had decided to retain Pakistan on the list of 'jurisdiction under enhanced monitoring' till the review in February 2021 when the status of its compliance with recommendations would be assessed again.

Pakistan has so far fully complied with 21 of the 27 actions recommended by FATF. It was, however, deemed to have crucially fallen short on action against the organisations linked to the terror groups listed by the UN Security Council; and prosecution and conviction of banned individuals. Similarly, it was said to have done little to tackle terror financing through narcotics and smuggling of precious stones.

Mr Qureshi said he expected a positive decision would be made in Pakistan's case as 'substantial progress' had been made on the remaining six items.

OIC CFM

Foreign Minister Qureshi said that Pakistan would host the next meeting of Organisation of Islamic CoopeAration's (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) later this year.

He said Pakistan would keep...

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