Islamabad – Pakistan expressed optimism on Monday that it would be removed from the global watch list on terrorist financing as the country’s status was being reviewed.
Pakistan and its powerful military are often accused of harbouring Islamist militants to use them as proxies against regional rival India and neighbouring Afghanistan.
There were hardly any restrictions on raising funds for terrorist groups in Pakistan before intervention by the international watchdog, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
“We have done a lot to remove anomalies in our system. We hope the body will remove us from the watch list,” Pakistani Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh said in Islamabad.
The topic was expected to be addressed this week during a meeting of the FATF in Paris.
The organisation put Pakistan on the watch list in 2018.
Shaikh attested that Pakistan had made significant progress in all the areas of financial controls identified by the global watchdog.
There was a possibility that Pakistan’s status could be downgraded to the blacklist.
The Asian regional affiliate of the FATF, the Asia Pacific Group, said in a recent report that Pakistan had complied only partially and there were still risks of terrorist financing going undetected.
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