Islamabad (Pakistan News Online) Additional Secretary Interior Salman Chaudhry has informed the Senate Committee that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is not issuing visas to Pakistanis.
According to the details by “Daily Pakistan”, Pakistan and the UAE have close diplomatic, economic and cultural relations, while the UAE is one of Pakistan’s largest trading partners in the Middle East and is also an important source of remittances, where a large number of Pakistani expatriates live and work. However, Additional Secretary Interior Salman Chaudhry told the Senate’s Functional Committee on Human Rights that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is not issuing visas to Pakistanis.
He said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were close to imposing a ban on Pakistani passports but stopped at the last minute, warning that “if the ban is imposed, it will be very difficult to remove it.”
The Interior Ministry official further said that currently the UAE is issuing visas only to holders of blue passports and diplomatic passports.
Senator Samina Mumtaz Zehri, head of the Senate Human Rights Committee, also confirmed the statement of the Interior Ministry official in an exclusive interview with Dawn.
She said that the reason given for the ban is that some people go to the UAE and get involved in crimes. the committee was told that the UAE is not issuing visas to Pakistanis and in the recent past, very few visas have been issued after great difficulty.