Qureshi highlights importance, urgency of legislation on FATF

ISLAMABAD: Highlighting the importance and urgency of legislation for getting Pakistan’s name out of the grey list of Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Wednesday urged the opposition parties to extend cooperation by keeping the national interests ahead of the personal ones.

“The laws introduced by the government are in the national interests. Please keep the interests of Pakistan ahead. Don’t blackmail.

The government will not be blackmailed,” Qureshi said while addressing a press conference here along with Special Assistant to PM Shehzad Akbar and Parliamentary Secretary Maleeka Bukhari.

He said since India wanted Pakistan’s name pushed from the grey list to black list of FATF, failure in getting the legislation on FATF passed, would be very bad for the country.

Referring to the government-opposition negotiations on the legislation, the Foreign Minister said the opposition put conditions for cooperation in FATF-related legislation and wanted the government to accept their amendments in accountability law.

“At one side, there is a national interest, while on the other there is personal interest. We said, don’t equate the one with other,” he remarked and questioned why the opposition parties did not bring change in the accountability law. The Foreign Minister said that if the 34 amendments proposed by the opposition were accepted, it would be tantamount to compromise the accountability process.