US Refuses to Speculate on FATF Decision on Pakistan

Washington, DC – The United States under the new Biden Administration refused to comment on the chances of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to blacklist Pakistan for its many violations at its Virtual Meeting of the FATF Plenary (3-day meeting: Monday 22 (20h-24h), Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25, 12h-16h).

The global watchdog will consider Pakistan ‘greylist’ status, meant for countries “under increased monitoring” during the upcoming meeting. The country was placed on the grey-list in 2018.

Most of the US departments either didn’t respond to requests (the Department of Treasury) to comment on the subject or had no comments to offer.

Meanwhile, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is calling upon the Biden Administration – through Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen – to press the Financial Action Task Force to blacklist Pakistan for its many violations, including its support for Azerbaijan’s attack on the indigenous Armenian population in Nagorno Karabakh (also known as Artsakh).

“Islamabad’s conduct clearly merits blacklisting,” it said in a statement to IAT adding, “Parallel to this initiative, we are building bridges between the Hindu and Indian American communities and Americans of Armenian heritage – based on shared values and also common interests related to our respective homelands.”

Pakistan has been on FATF’s grey list since June 2018 and the government was given a final warning in February 2020 to complete the 27 action points by June in the same year.

The FATF extended the June deadline to September due to the spread of coronavirus that disrupted the FATF plenary meetings.

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