Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, declared on Sunday that after a decade-long suspension, Kuwait will resume visas for Pakistanis “immediately.”
The minister made the statement during a one-day visit to the Gulf nation.
According to the interior minister, he visited Kuwaiti Prime Ministry Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah and sent special greetings from Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“There has been a big development on the front of Kuwaiti visas that had been stopped for Pakistanis since 2011. Family and business visas between Pakistan and Kuwait will now be restored,” he announced, in a statement on Twitter.
According to the interior minister, there will be no restrictions on technical visas in the domains of health and oil.
Pakistanis will now be able to apply for visas and visit Kuwait online, he added
According to Ahmed, Kuwait’s prime minister, Pakistan and Kuwait have had a long-standing relationship that dates back seven decades.
“Pakistani families and the business community faced great difficulties with the Kuwaiti visa ban,” he tweeted, hailing the role of Pakistani labour in the development of Kuwait.
He praised the significance of Pakistani labour in Kuwait’s prosperity, tweeting, “Pakistani families and the business community endured enormous problems with the Kuwaiti visa restriction.”
“Restoration of worker visas will create new employment opportunities for Pakistanis and business visas will boost trade between the two countries.”
The minister had declared in mid-March that discussions were underway to reissue Kuwaiti visas to Pakistanis.
Kuwait stopped providing visas to people of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in 2011 due to difficult security conditions in these countries, according to Arab News.
The visit by the interior minister comes after a meeting between Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly’s Special Meeting on Palestine in New York last week.
