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This Article is From Feb 21, 2018

To Pak Claim Of Reprieve On Terror Financing Tag, India, US Hint Not Yet

Government sources said New Delhi was inclined to wait and see the final outcome as there has been no official word on the proceedings.

To Pak Claim Of Reprieve On Terror Financing Tag, India, US Hint Not Yet
Pakistan's Foreign Minister thanked 'friends' who helped it avoid major international embarrassment.
New Delhi: Pakistan has claimed a three-month reprieve from being put in a watch-list for terrorism financing by the global watchdog Financial Action Task Force, or FATF.

"Our efforts paid," tweeted Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif late on Tuesday night, as he announced that the Paris-based international monitoring compliance had put off a decision on the United States-led motion to put Islamabad on the watch-list.

Mr Asif said there had been "no consensus" over nominating Pakistan to the watch-list at the meeting and it was decided to seek another report to be considered in June.

The Foreign Minister, who is on a visit to Russia, also thanked Pakistan's friends for buying his country time. "Grateful to friends who helped," Mr Asif said, widely seen as a reference to China.

Apart from the international embarrassment of being classified as a country that isn't doing enough to crack down on terror and terror financing, getting on to this watch-list would have affected Islamabad's international credit ratings and the cost of borrowing.

Pakistan had got off the watch-list just a little over two years ago, in 2015.

But there has been no confirmation of the Foreign Minister's claims from New Delhi or the United States that have hinted the foreign minister may have got ahead of himself.

US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said she had no information that the global body had already arrived at a decision.

"We're anticipating that the final decision would be made on Thursday of this week," Ms Nauert said.

Sources in the Indian government made a similar point to NDTV. "The meeting of the task force will go on till Friday and we would like to wait and see the final outcome," a government source said.

Relations between Pakistan and the US have been tense since President Donald Trump lashed out at the country last August, upbraiding Islamabad for sheltering "agents of chaos".

Ms Nauert said the United States had been very clear about Pakistan and "our concerns about terrorist financing".

"How many times have we talked about the person who's - (Hafiz Saeed) Pakistan let out of house arrest, who was responsible for the Mumbai attacks back in 2008 that killed so many people, including Americans too," she said.

Pakistan's recent move to amend its anti-terror laws to ban groups listed as terrorists by the United Nations is seen to be a fallout of the US-led motion to bracket Pakistan with the 11 countries such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. Following the change in law, officials had started seizing some assets from Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the outfit run by Hafiz Saeed.

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