Pakistan looks set to end up on the global terror watchlist again after its diplomatic maneuvering ahead of last week’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting in Paris proved fruitless.
The United States called for an unprecedented second meeting to review Pakistan’s position, two days after Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif announced in a self-congratulatory tweet that Islamabad had received a ‘three-month reprieve’. Asif had claimed that Pakistan’s “efforts have paid (off)”.
Multiple diplomatic sources confirmed to Asia Times that the second meeting on Pakistan was called up after the minister ‘openly leaked’ details of the meetings. “The US officials were outraged by the clear breach, and decided to call up a follow-up meeting to discuss the matter to review Pakistan,” a senior diplomat told Asia Times.
The biggest setback came through China and Saudi Arabia who, in their second vote, backed out from supporting Pakistan from being put on the ‘grey-list’.
Islamabad made several efforts to muster support from FATF member states in the lead-up to the meeting. Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif made a trip to Moscow to meet his counterpart Sergey Lavrov during the Paris meeting. Sources confirmed that the two discussed support for Pakistan during the FATF meeting, apart from counter-terror cooperation and military deals.
Saudis persuaded to drop support
A similar request was also made to Saudi Arabia as Pakistan agreed to send military troops to the kingdom before the FATF meet. Saudi Arabia did vote against Pakistan being grey-listed, but was later talked out of it by US officials.
“The US officials went out of their way to convince the Saudis, while China backed out from supporting Pakistan afterwards because the Chinese vote wouldn’t have sufficed since three votes are needed to block the move and Pakistan only had Turkey’s,” a Foreign Office official told Asia Times.
Pakistan now risks being blacklisted unless it can present a convincing action plan which will be scrutinized at the next FATF meeting. Since Islamabad did not present its proposals at last week’s meetings, it temporarily avoided being placed on the grey-list, where it was placed from 2012 to 2015.
“The Asia Pacific group that takes action over the list has been kind to Pakistan [when the country was last on the list], but there is a lot more stringent scrutiny now,” Muhammad Amir Rana, a security analyst and director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), told Asia Times.
Big impact on relations with the EU
“The biggest impact on being grey-listed will be on Pakistan’s relations with the EU and the Euro Bonds that it has sold,” he added.
Political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi, author of ‘Pakistan and the Geostrategic Environment: A Study of Foreign Policy’, told Asia Times that Pakistan managed to survive the grey-list between 2012 and 2015 because the US didn’t take any hard action.
“Pakistan survived back then because the US wasn’t as against Islamabad as it is now. The other Western powers didn’t express similar antagonism either. The US was actually giving aid to Pakistan back then,” Rizvi said.
“But now with the Western powers against Pakistan, any country can scrutinize economic relations with Pakistan. So, even things like expats sending remittances back home might be monitored more thoroughly than they might’ve been in the past.”
The Hafiz Saeed factor
Days before the meeting, in a bid to forestall the FATF verdict, Pakistan passed an Anti-Terrorism Order that labeled Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, and his groups, as terrorists. But this action — a repeat of last year’s move when Pakistan put Saeed under house arrest ahead of the FATF meeting — was clearly seen as insufficient.
Saeed managed to not only create a political party – the Milli Muslim League (MML) – while under house arrest. He even vowed to contest the general elections this year, after being released in November.
While the meeting was going on in Paris, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a news briefing that action would be taken against Pakistan for not doing enough to counter terrorism at home, and specifically mentioned Hafiz Saeed. Multiple sources have said the FATF wants action against Saeed and his groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jama’at-ud-Dawah.
Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri has described the developments in Paris as a “diplomatic shambles”.
“Pakistan can no longer sell its narrative because the world is clearly watching us,” he said while talking to Asia Times. “Pakistan needs to start taking action against militant groups, not because there is international pressure to do so, but simply because it is in Pakistan’s own best interests.”
Hope Porkistan becomes like another Syria and the Sunni Arab cult barbarians start killing each other and reduce their population for the greater good of the world.
I guess the world hates Pakistanis because they send a lot of their soldiers to UN and humanity support missions, or the fact that they’ve been helping USA in almost all wars; but every single time their efforts weren’t acknowledged by so-called "friends" also, kinda weird as to why UK, Germany, France took initiatives to vote against Pakistan (probably because they rather not anger USA or is there some other reason, maybe religion or maybe they hate people with slightly tanned-skins). Poor Pakistan thrown under the bus over and over again, even good old friends like Saudi Arabia and China stepped back. Learn from this Pakistan, these people have no hearts they like to dehumanize a country and later on carpet-bomb it (especially a Muslim country).
Stop using Asian people’s profile picture and defaming them you Indian scum. Everyone knows who you are.
Stop using Asian people’s name and defaming them you Pakistani scum. Everyone knows you are terrorist.
Biswajyoti Kafley How am I a Paki? I’m Asian and furthermore, if I weren’t Asian I wouldn’t have gotten angry above at your dirty Indian friend using a Asian persons profile picture and claming to live in Vietnam! You Indian SCUM!
Biswajyoti Kafley Also I wrote the above comment to tell Pakistanis they can’t expect to be bailed out every time. They shouldn’t rely on others to do things for them and should learn to do things properly, it’s their policy failures which lead to this outcome. They were foolish enough to join USA’s war, dumb enough to commit their troops to UN missions, dumb enough to actually completely blindly trust other countries. There is no such things as "friends" only INTERESTS. That’s the point I’m making, unfortunately, it was to vague and made you jump to weird conclusions.
ISIS, TTP, Tamils and hundreds more are all state sponsored. Which world forums discuss the atrocities committed by these states and who places these states on watchlists? It is just a matter of time.
This is just again another glaring example of how the bully destabilizes the world, using the doctrine of "my enemy’s enemy is my friend."????
The big question, anyway, is who originally caused terrorism to be born and to spread worldwide???? What a bunch of conspiring hypocrites!????????????
Bikram Banerjee What is your point? Inclusive India who want to convert all to hindu, and mab attach minorities and foreigns?
This guy is clearly is not getting it. No hopes of ever learning to live straight.
Bruce Lee so you are a chinese scum!
What did the Tamils do? You have very few friends, dont make another enemy.
Ur hope is as good as ur brown shit
Murli Nair You have all enemies, nothing can help you.
Jo Snow, just check the % of muslim population in india before, after and now, with that of Hindu population in Pakistan, you will get a clearer picture. But, if you decide to remain blind, no one can help you/Pakistan.
Pakistan’s deep state is the cause of most of the misery it has been going through. Do read Bruce Riedel’s book ‘Deadly Embrace’…he is an ex intelligence professional and provides a dispassionate (non aligned as well) view to the build up towards the current crisis. In today’s Pakistan there is no distinction between the soldiers in the armed forces and those recruited by the JuD and other innumerable non state militia. They recruit men from the same villages, you will find one son joining the army and the other a jihadi outfit. When things get so complex, how does one propose the Govt. shut down these outfits. On the foreign policy front, it is the army clearly calling the shots. This has been the case ever since General Yahya Khan’s regime, while General Zia cemented his control by accelerating the islamization of the army. I do amire the ISI for its bravado and adventurism. Its Indian counterpart isn’t half as effective because of a lack of freedom. Pakistan must focus on its economy and encourage business and its entrepreneurs to crawl out of this self inflicted mess. It is way too obsessed with India. Too much of its money, resources and intellectual capacity is spent countering India. Imagine if they could work with India…just a dream, but imagine how incredible it could be for the progress of the subcontinent. I sincerely hope that there is a visionary military leader (akin to the military ruler of South Korea from the 1960s) who could steer the country out of the rabit hole that it finds itself in and align it with the progressive countries of the world. Like it or not the world’s perception of Pakistan is that of a terrorist sponsor. They may cry themselves blue in the face to tell you otherwise, but the facts are out there.
Pass your mother for me
Bruce Lee … a fake id just like ur words… world knows all the things.. osama bin laden did not found anywhere else except in pakistan. I can write 100 more points bt it will b waste of my time.
Even Muhammad professed with end of 1400 hizri calender, "ISLAM WILL FADE OUT TO EXTINTION & KIYAMAT OF MUSULMANS TO FOLLOW" IT already began with SAUDI ARABIA, with its crowned successor prince already shunning SARIA LAWS, & FLOUTING KORANIC SURMONS.
It’s a shy approach by india, not to get involved with any financial deal with any heavenly debt ridden economy& cunningly stood as 2 and. Highest bidder. Its not very far in time & policy that CHINA WILL MAKE ALL THESE neibours there colonies, for Raw materials to be paid as defaulter to there invested loses, & non payment of loan money given by there "NEW LENDER POP" CHINA. ???
The worst possible scenario is a failed state with access to an atomic button. Pakistan is progressively adding up the points to reach this level.
It shows each and every country the relevance of being self reliant (similar to china) and being ahead in the race for the interest of people
Pakistan acts very cleverly thinking it is the only nation can act like this very worst it’s impact will be disastrous for Pakistan only.
Pakistan needs to get its act together else there is no way the world will let it go on. Every terror action in the world is somehow connected to Pakistan. Its reputation is tarnished to such an extent that the world has come together to act in unison. This has come about at the worst time as Pakistan looks for a bail out from becoming a wilful defaulter on its financial commitments.
Bruce Lee,
I am sure as a Chinese you love Pakistan because they are selling their real estate to you for pittance!
no, the reason why Pakistan is so hated is because it is dubious. It says one thing and does something else.
For years, Pakistan has double crossed USA by promising to fight terrorism and taking money while siphoning the money to fight a war against India.
US of A tolerated all this because it was not hurting America. Now that Americans are also getting killed on ground, US and the West has finally woken up to the menace.