P.A. Turkey

FATF places Turkey on grey list over terror financing

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has placed Turkey on its grey list for failing to check terror financing, Agence France-Presse reported on Thursday.

Turkey’s control over financial operations continues to have “serious issues”, FATF chief Marcus Pleyer told reporters at a press conference.

The Turkish government made a commitment to efforts against money laundering, Pleyer said. “I urge them to turn this commitment into action,” he said.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) global financial watchdog, Turkey had made progress in several areas, including developing a national strategy against money laundering and financing of terrorism.

Turkey is set to allocate more resources to investigations of unregistered money transfer services, AFP said.

Being grey listed could cost Turkey’s already struggling economy as much as 3 percent of its gross domestic product, some $23 billion, according to an IMF study cited by the Financial Times.

In a 2019 report, the FATF had said Turkey would need to do more to freeze assets linked to terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“Due to its geographic location, the country faces the greatest money laundering risks from drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking and fuel smuggling,” the FATF had said.

According to the 2019 report, Turkish authorities focused “largely on identifying the assets held by terror suspects, rather than expanding the scope to include the collection, movement, and use of funds or other assets”.

Ankara’s ally Pakistan has remained on the grey list.

In February last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had said his government would help Pakistan make it off the list.

Jordan and Mali were also added to the list on Thursday.

Ahval