Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Saturday questioned the decision of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to keep Pakistan on its "increased monitoring list" despite making considerable progress under the action plan given to the country by the financial watchdog.

Reacting to the task force's decision, the foreign minister said, "it is to be determined whether FATF is a political forum or a technical one and whether it is being used to achieve political objectives."

Qureshi said Pakistan has completed work on 26 points significant progress has been made on the 27th point. "In my view, in such a situation, there is no reason to keep Pakistan on the grey list," he added.

The foreign minister's statement came after FATF announced Friday that it was retaining Pakistan on the grey list after the plenary meeting was concluded as five days of talks came to an end in Paris.

Addressing a press conference after the meeting concluded, FATF President Dr. Marcus Pleyer said that Pakistan remains under "increased monitoring".

"The Pakistani government has made substantial progress in making its counter-terrorist financing systems stronger and more effective. It has largely addressed 26 out of 27 items on the action plan it first committed to in June 2018," Pleyer said.

In a statement issued, the FATF expressed satisfaction over Pakistan's progress and appreciated the high-level political commitment to work with global and regional anti-money laundering watchdogs. In a statement, FATF said:

"The FATF recognizes Pakistan's progress and efforts to address these CFT (counter financing of terrorism) action plan items and notes that since February 2021, Pakistan has made progress to complete two of the three remaining action items on demonstrating that effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions are imposed for TF convictions and that Pakistan's targeted financial sanctions regime was being used effectively to targeted terrorist assets."

The anti-terror financing watchdog asked Pakistan to make progress on the one remaining point and urged authorities to take strict actions against "senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups."

The group asked Pakistan to work to address its strategically important Anti- Money Laundering (AML) and CFT deficiencies. It has asked Pakistan to:

1. enhance international cooperation by amending the MLA law
2. demonstrates that assistance is being sought from foreign countries in implementing 1373 designations
3. demonstrates that supervisors are conducting both on-site and off-site supervision commensurate with specific risks associated with DNFPBs, including applying appropriate sanctions where necessary
4. demonstrates that proportionate and dissuasive sanctions are applied consistently to all legal persons and legal arrangements for non-compliance with beneficial ownership requirements
5. demonstrates an increase in ML investigations and prosecutions and that proceeds of crime continue to be restrained and confiscated in line with Pakistan’s risk profile, including working with foreign counterparts to trace, freeze, and confiscate assets
6. demonstrates that DNFBPs are being monitored for compliance with proliferation financing requirements and that sanctions are being imposed for non-compliance