MULTAN: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi hopes that Pakistan will soon move out of the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

“We are moving forward according to our national need and not at the behest of anyone else. The steps taken by our government against money laundering and terrorism financing are our national needs.”

He said Pakistan was on the FATF grey list during the PML-N tenure also and the PTI government had taken steps in the last two-and-a-half years to get out of the list.

Mr Qureshi was talking to the media at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office here on Sunday.

“We have raised the issue of export of uranium to a group in India. If the incident had taken place in Pakistan, the Indian media would have raised a storm but our media did not cover the issue effectively. I would urge the Pakistani media to highlight this issue as much as possible and express the sentiments of the Pakistani government and the people.”

The minister said violence and civil war were likely to escalate in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US troops and Pakistan would suffer the most as a result of the civil war in its neighbouring country.

“We do not want a new wave of civil war to come to us. Pakistan is currently hosting three million Afghan refugees and it does not want to host more refugees. We want the return of refugees to be part of the Afghan peace process.”

In response to a question regarding the security of the Kabul airport after the US troops’ withdrawal, the foreign minister said Turkey was a coalition partner and it had been asked to oversee the airport security.

Talking about the recent blast in Lahore, he said progress was made in the investigation into the attack though he did not divulge further details.

About the development projects in Multan, including the Secretariat and the residences of the officers, he said tenders had been printed in the newspapers.

Regarding the powers of secretaries posted in South Punjab, Mr Qureshi said five meetings had been held about the amendments to the Rules of Business.

“We wanted a secretariat with full powers, not a post office,” he added.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2021