DUBAI: Additional Interior Secretary Salman Chaudhry, on Thursday, confirmed that the United Arab Emirates has stopped issuing visas to Pakistani passport holders. He made this revelation during a meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights.
Chaudhry warned that though the UAE and Saudi Arabia had “stopped short of imposing a ban on the Pakistani passport”, any formal ban would be hard to roll back. He added that for now, the UAE is only granting visas to holders of blue passports and diplomatic passports.
Senator Samina Mumtaz Zehri, who heads the Senate committee, also confirmed the statement, informing Dawn that the curbs have been imposed due to apprehensions about some Pakistanis travelling to the UAE and indulging in criminal activities. She informed that only a few visas had been issued recently, “after much difficulty.”
The UAE is one of the closest economic partners with Pakistan and remains one of the major sources of remittances, thanks to its large Pakistani expatriate workforce.
