A Pakistani foreign office statement says a pandemic is blocking the UAE visa and not ‘security concerns’ as reported earlier.
Pakistan says the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has confirmed that last month’s sudden visa ban was “temporary in nature” and was imposed due to a coronavirus infection.
A statement released on Sunday by Pakistan’s foreign office said Gulf state Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan was “[reaffirmed] the value of the UAE to the 1.5 million strong Pakistani community and their active contribution to the growth and prosperity of the country ”.
The statement came days after Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi awaited his two-day trip to the UAE aimed at finding a solution for a visa ban.
On November 18, the UAE abruptly stopped issuing new visas to citizens of 13 predominantly Muslim countries over “security concerns”, according to a report from Reuters news agency.
The countries were Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and Yemen. The new restrictions did not appear to affect the citizens of those countries already in the UAE.
The UAE said that applications for new employment and visiting visas for citizens of these Muslim-majority countries have been postponed pending further information.
Qureshi took a two-day trip to the UAE earlier in the week and met with his UAE colleague and other top officials to discuss a number of issues, including the ban on issuing new visas.
“The Pakistani community and our diaspora in the UAE have made a significant contribution to the development and development of the UAE and we are aware, valued and grateful for that. I have discussed some issues of concern and I look forward to resolving them, ”Qureshi said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
The day before, Qureshi held talks with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s governor, who is also the UAE’s prime minister, vice president and defense minister, in Dubai on visa bans.
The UAE is home to Pakistan’s second largest overseas population in the world, according to government data, and is a major source of foreign currency for Pakistan in the form of compensation of those workers back at the house.
Last month, about 1.5 million Pakistanis in the UAE sent home $ 519.5m, making up 22 percent of all foreign currencies and ranking second overall in currency by country , according to Pakistan central bank data.
Saudi Arabia leads that list, with Pakistani workers there sending home $ 615.1m in November.
