ISLAMABAD: The United States has refuse to issue Visa for three senior government officials because of row over repatriation of deportees.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told on Tuesday to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs that visa refusal had been imposed on three officials of Pakistan government’s Interior Ministry.
The officials who are facing visa restrictions are an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry as well as the director general passports. The sanctions on these officials have been put in place after a row between the two countries over deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US because of overstay and other allegations. Mr. Quereshi said that the government had asked to fulfill the legal requirements.
The US has deported more than 100 Pakistanis in last 18 months and all of whom were accepted back. It is the first in Pakistan’s history that government have insisted on a verification of the credentials of the deportees. The foreign minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. Consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad is granting visas to the eligible applicants.
