Pak’s Senate Deputy Chair denied US visa

PAKISTAN’S SENATE Deputy Chairman and leader of one of the largest Islamic parties was denied a US visa, leading to the cancellation of a two-member delegation’s planned visit to New York to attend a meeting of the Inter-parliamentary Union at the UN headquarters.

Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, the deputy chairman and the secretary general of Jamiat Ulema Islam, was scheduled to lead a two-member Senate delegation at IPU meeting being held on February 13 and 14 at the UN.

“The visa of Haidri was put on hold in what can be termed a technical refusal,” the Express Tribune reported.

Senator Lt Gen (retd) Salahuddin Tirmizi — who was to accompany Haidri — was granted a visa just two days before.

The visit of the two senators has now been cancelled on the direction of Pakistan’s Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani who had taken notice of the issue.

The move comes days after a US court refused to reinstate President Donald Trump’s ban on people from seven Muslimmajority countries, which did not include Pakistan.

Citing official sources, the paper said the Senate Secretariat had applied for official visas for them two weeks ago.

“They said when the Senate Secretariat checked with the US Embassy about the status of Haidri’s passport through official channels, it was told that the US authorities would get back to it by Tuesday, clearly meaning that Haidri could not travel to the United States to attend the IPU conference,” it said.

“It is a technical refusal,” a top Senate official said.