Pakistan sanctions Taliban to avoid being blacklisted by FATF

In order to avoid Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklisting, Pakistan issued sweeping sanctions Afghanistan Taliban.

The orders were made public on late Friday at a time when Taliban are in the middle of US-led peace process in the neighboring country.

The order identifying dozen of individuals including Taliban’s chief peace negotiator Abdul Ghani Baradar and several members of the Haqqani family, including Sirajuddin, the current head of the Haqqani network and deputy head of the Taliban.

The list of sanctioned groups included others besides the Taliban and were in keeping with a five-year-old United Nations resolution sanctioning the Afghan group and freezing their assets.

Last year Paris-based group put Pakistan on a grey list. Until now only Iran and North Korea are blacklisted, which severely restricts a country’s international borrowing capabilities. Pakistan is trying to get off the grey list, officials told Associated Press (AP).

There was no immediate response from the Taliban, but many of the group’s leaders are known to own businesses and property in Pakistan.

It was Pakistan’s relationship with Taliban leadership that Washington eventually sought to exploit to move its peace negotiations with the insurgent movement forward.

US and Taliban signed a peace deal on February 29 in Doha. The deal is intended to end Washington’s nearly 20 years of military engagement in Afghanistan, and has been touted as Afghanistan’s best hope for a peace after more than four decades of war.

Despite US started its operation of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, the talks between Taliban and political leadership in Kabul have been stymied by delays in a prisoner release programme.

The two sides are to release prisoners – 5,000 by the government and 1,000 by the Taliban – as a good will gesture ahead of talks. Both sides blame the other for the delays.