Pakistan's ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani has urged Washington to expedite visa processing for Pakistani travellers and remove the name of his country from the list of 14 nations whose citizens go through scanning procedures at American airports.
The ambassador discussed issues related to Pakistan with Assistant Secretary of Policy at the US Department of Homeland Security David Heyman in an hour-long meeting at the Pakistani embassy. "Pakistan being an important ally of the US, the people of Pakistan are very sensitive to the discriminatory procedures of scanning applied to them at the American airports," Haqqani said, according to the Pakistani embassy.
There is a need that Pakistan's name be removed at the earliest from the list of 14 countries whose citizens are subjected to such additional procedures, he added. On the issue of US visa application processing, Ambassador Haqqani called for early completion of visa issuance process for Pakistanis, especially the students, who need to join campuses in time at the beginning of semesters at American institutions of higher learning. "The visa procedure needs to be simplified," he said.