ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri on Thursday denied “false media reports” regarding the assessment of Pakistan’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) action plan, saying that Islamabad is actually working on the creation of a new financial action task force.
Chaudhri “categorically rejected” the story circulating on a segment of the media as false and baseless, confirming that Pakistan is collaborating with China and Turkey to create a new FATF.
“We’re actually creating a FAT, because taskforce is one word,” the FO spokesperson further clarified while talking to the media.
Later talking to The Dependent, Chaudhri further illustrated the plan saying that Pakistan isn’t worried about being on “any grey, white or black lists.”
“We’ll create new lists and allocate other countries on those lists as we want. Even though China is leading the existing FATF, but in FAT, along with Turkey, it will only be the three of us voting with regards to the fate of other countries,” he added.
The Foreign Office spokesperson confirmed that the three countries would be formulating the guidelines and recommendations that all other countries would have to follow in order to determine their position on the lists.
At press time, Zahid Hafeez Chuadhri was refuting reports that he did not include Saudi Arabia in the list of countries leading the new FAT.
“When I said, the ‘three of us’, I clearly meant China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia,” he categorically declared.
