FATF president says will hold Pakistan accountable if it doesn't fulfill commitments

New Delhi: Even as Financial Action Task Force (FATF) came down hard on Pakistan for not doing enough on terror financing, the president of the anti-terror financing group Marshall Billingslea has said that the multilateral group will hold Islamabad accountable if the country does not fulfil its commitments. 

Replying to a question if Pakistan is serious on acting on terror, Billingslea said, "I have engaged in my capacity as the president of FATF...I believe when they issue high-level commitment that they well understood what they were committing to. We will hold them to it and we expect a time table to be met and action plan to be fully implemented in line with FATF standards"

A high-level delegation from the government of Pakistan attended the FATF plenary. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has said Pakistan has not demonstrated a "proper understanding" of the Terror Financing risks posed by the terrorist organisations and persons affiliated with the Taliban.

Pakistan was greylisted in June 2018, which means the country comes under the financial jurisdiction with “structural deficiencies” in anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) or supports financing of terror.

After being greylisted, Pakistan had made a high-level political commitment to strengthen its AML/CFT regime.

FATF asked Pakistan to implement the 10 point action plan given by the country itself to address the "strategic deficiencies" on terror financing. It said in a release, "Given the limited progress on action plan items due in January 2019, the FATF urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its action plan, particularly those with timelines of May 2019."

FATF also condemned the Pulwama terror attack. FATF president said, "we condemn the violent terrorist attacks that led to the loss of more than 40 Indian security forces in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, and we made additionally clear that the FATF will intensify its ongoing efforts."