Additional Interior Secretary Salman Chaudhry disclosed this during a meeting of the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights, as reported by Dawn newspaper. The report further quoted him stating that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had “stopped short of imposing a ban on the Pakistani passport”.
“If a ban is enacted [on the Pakistani passport], it would be challenging to have it lifted,” he cautioned. He mentioned that presently, the UAE is only granting visas to holders of blue and diplomatic passports.
A Pakistani blue passport serves as an official passport for government officials and other authorized personnel, distinct from the common green passport issued to regular citizens.
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Senator Samina Mumtaz Zehri, who chairs the Senate committee on human rights, corroborated the interior ministry official’s statements to the publication.
She attributed the visa restrictions to worries regarding individuals traveling to the UAE and “getting involved in criminal activities”.
The committee was informed that the UAE is not currently issuing visas to Pakistanis, with very few granted recently “after considerable difficulty”, she noted.
Conversely, UAE Ambassador to Pakistan Salem M. Salem Al Bawab Al Zaabi presented “major UAE visa facilitation reforms for Pakistanis” to Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Thursday, according to a statement from the finance ministry.
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The reforms discussed at their meeting in Islamabad included online visa processing, e-visas without the need for passport stamping, and more efficient system-to-system linkages, stated the finance ministry on X.
Almost 500 visas are being processed daily at the newly established UAE Visa Centre in Pakistan, the statement added, outlining further reforms shared by the ambassador.
Pakistan and the UAE maintain strong diplomatic, economic, and cultural relationships.
The UAE ranks as one of Pakistan’s major trading partners in the Middle East and serves as a significant source of remittances, with a substantial population of Pakistani expatriates residing and working there.
However, Pakistani citizens faced an increase in visa rejections in early July, prompting Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi to address the issue with his UAE counterpart.
During a meeting on July 11, UAE Lt Gen Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan assured Naqvi of “full support” in hastening visa approvals for Pakistani citizens, as the Pakistani minister requested “relaxation in visa policies”.
In April, the UAE ambassador announced that the visa complications had been resolved, allowing Pakistanis to apply for a five-year visa.
This update followed a report from the Senate Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis in January, which indicated that some visas to the UAE had been “unofficially closed”.
Overseas Employment Promoter Aisam Baig made this assertion, adding that the UAE government was concerned that Pakistanis holding “visit visas, not work visas”, resort to begging in the country.
Nonetheless, the committee’s chairman, Senator Zeeshan Khanzada, stated that there were “no restrictions on work visas” for Pakistanis traveling to the Gulf nation, according to the report.
