UAE Foreign Minister important statement over relations with Pakistan

UAE Foreign Minister important statement over relations with Pakistan

In a statement on Saturday, UAE Foreign Minister Nahyan "affirmed the depth of the bilateral relations between the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, and recalled the keenness of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan on the relations during the early stages of establishment".

He stressed "the temporary nature of the recent restrictions imposed on the issuance of visas due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic", according to link the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation.

*Editorial:* *The Pakistani workforce has become an unfortunate casualty of the Middle East’s changing geopolitics link*

The move comes as a surprise because, even though Covid-19 infections and deaths have seen a rise in Pakistan in recent weeks, the country has been praised link by the World Health Organisation, among others, for its handling of the health crisis. Some other countries with much higher caseloads were not barred by the UAE.

The statement was issued after Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi paid a two-day official visit to the UAE during which he held meetings with the top Emirati leadership.

Qureshi had met Nahyan on Thursday. He had apprised his counterpart of the difficulties being faced by the Pakistani community in the UAE, but no discussion about the visa issue was made public at the time.