The PPP government had at the highest official level allowed the then ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, to issue visas to American nationals, bypassing all security protocols in 2010, shows a classified document issued by the prime minister’s secretariat on July 14, 2010.
The controversy over an article penned by Haqqani deepened after the emergence of the secret document, which bears the signatures of the then principal secretary to then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. The document is likely to put the PPP top leadership under immense pressure
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in his policy speech before the Senate indicated on Tuesday that the interior ministry, through a letter dated July 16, 2010, had allowed Haqqani to issue diplomatic visas to American nationals without referring their cases to the ministry or security agencies for clearance.
Aziz was cryptic, ostensibly for some political reasons, when referring to the role of Gilani in this matter.
“A letter [had been sent] by the ministry of interior to [Pakistan’s] Embassy in Washington on July 16, 2010 under the [prevailing] visa policy, [for] our official visitors, the ambassador in Washington is empowered to issue entry visas for restricted period to US officials who have been recommended in writing by the US authority concerned.
“The prime minister has been pleased to direct that the ambassador in Washington will be empowered with immediate effect to issue visas valid up to one year without the Embassy having to refer such aforementioned visa applications to the authorities concerned in Pakistan. So, there was a change of policy in the issue by authorizing the ambassador to issue visas without referring to the ministry of interior,” reads the transcript of the speech made by Aziz on the floor of the house.
Aziz made no mention of the actual role played by the highest office of the county.
The document makes it clear that the interior ministry’s purported letter might have been the subsequent communication between the interior ministry and Pakistan’s Embassy in Washington on the basis of directives given by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat two days ago.
The document, stamped ‘secret’ – a copy of which had been sent to the interior secretary – is captioned: ‘Issuance of Official Visas For US Citizens Travelling to Pakistan’.
According to this document: “Under the existing policy for official US visitors to Pakistan, the ambassador in Washington is empowered to issue entry visas for restricted periods to US officials who have been recommended in writing by the concerned US authority, i.e. the Department of State and whose duly completed application forms clearly indicate for what purposes they intend to travel to Pakistan”.
In the next paragraph, Gilani accords unprecedented powers to Haqqani.
“The prime minister has been pleased to decide that the ambassador in Washington will be empowered, with immediate effect, to issue visas valid up to one year without the Embassy having to refer each such aforementioned visa application to the authorities concerned in Pakistan.”
“The Pakistan Embassy in the US would issue these visas under intimation to the prime minister’s office, in Islamabad,” the document concludes.
Aziz also provided figures, denoting the sudden spike in issuance of visas to the Americans. As many as 2,487 visas had been issued between July and December that year, amounting to a 50 per cent increase over figures for previous six months. This figure was all-time high against data for the previous three years.
In 2008, between January and June 1,633 visas were issued. Over the next six months (July-December 2008), as many as 1,892 visas were issued, during the January-June period of 2009, at least 1,586 visas were issued, while during the July-December period of the same year, at least 1,656 visas were issued by the Pakistan Embassy in Washington.
Normally, Pakistan’s embassies processed visas for all those who intended to visit Pakistan as tourists and for business purposes without sending their cases to ministry of interior. But, in case of what Foreign Office calls assignment (official) visas, for foreign nationals, their cases are referred to the interior ministry and relevant security agencies for clearance.
PPP's STANCE: Clarifying the PPP's position on the controversy surrounding the issuance of over two thousand visas to US citizens, allegedly after bypassing proper channels, party spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar on Friday said there was "nothing new or wrong" in the letter sent by Prime Minister House to the Foreign Office in 2010 circulated in media today.
The letter, brought to the fore in media Thursday night, suggested that the prime minister's office had empowered the then ambassador of Pakistan in Washington, Hussain Haqqani, to directly issue diplomatic visas to Americans without requiring clearance from relevant authorities.
Babar, in a statement issued to media on Friday, said the timing of the letter 'leaking' to media was suspect.
"Its [the official letter's] regurgitation at this time is politically motivated and aimed at diverting attention from the real issue," he said.
Embassies in important capitals of the world have representatives of relevant government departments, including security agencies, he insisted.
"The ambassador was empowered by the prime minister to issue visas, but that does not mean that due process within the embassy, involving representatives of other departments, was allowed to be circumvented," he claimed.
The PPP leader said the ambassador had been empowered to issue visas only to those whose purpose of visit was clearly defined and duly recommended by the US State Department."The purpose was to expedite, not bypass, the process," he added.
"It [the letter] was also not an authorisation to issue visas to US Special Operation Forces," he elaborated.
Diverting attention to the US raid in Abbotabad which killed Osama Bin Laden, Babar instead asked how it was that Bin Laden lived in a cantonment for almost a decade directing global terrorism efforts.
"The central question is not who, following due process, gave visas to some Americans who may have eventually been able to hunt and take Laden out," he contended.
"No amount of verbal jugglery, media circus and mudslinging on the previous PPP government will erase this question from public mind," he stated.
He suggested that a thorough inquiry into Pakistan's visa issuance policies and procedures across the board should be initiated from 2001 onward, when the global hunt for Bin Laden started.
"Targeting some individuals or a political government for political purposes will not advance national security interests," he said.
"National security interests will be advanced only by a credible, non-poartisan probe in visa policies and procedures across the board and across time," he added.
"Investigations must also be made into how many Americans entered Pakistan through the Shamsi Airbase in Balochistan, with or without visas, during the days of Gen Pervez Musharraf," he said, targetting the former president and military chief.
"Such investigations cannot be made through selective leaks or public statements in the media. A starting point can be the Abbottabad Commission probing the Laden fiasco," read his statement.
"Hunting Bin Laden has always been the official narrative. Making the Abbottabad Commission report public will be in conformity with the narrative. Any other course will not be credible and will be seen as political witch hunting," he concluded.
