LONDON: The British government is set to announce its new travel review of dozens of countries including making a key decision whether to move Pakistani to amber list, out of the travel ban Red List, or continue its categorization.
Trusted Pakistani sources familiar with Pakistan’s lobbying with the British government told The News that the chances of Pakistan coming out of the Red List are “fifty, fifty”. However, Pakistan has asked the UK govt both on and off the record to remove Pakistan from the Red List as Pakistan meets the requirement already.
Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke to PM Boris Johnson and raised the issue of Red Listing which has caused issues to thousands of Pakistanis. Behind the scenes, several other players and factors are involved to get Pakistan off the Red List.
Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the UK officials have made a beeline to get visas for Pakistan and its understood that Pakistan has issued over 300 visas only in the last 10 days and hundreds more are eager to obtain visas.
A high-ranking British official visited Pakistan last week and a top official is set to land in Islamabad this week to meet Pakistani officials about the Afghanistan situation. Pakistan has already raised the issue during the facilitation of evacuation efforts that Pakistan is under pressure from its own communities for removal from the Red List. Pakistan has conveyed to the UK that as compared to the data that featured in UK’s decision making last time, cases have fallen in all areas that are required; positivity and fatality rates have gone down and genome sequencing, which feel short of the requirement last time, has improved massively.
It’s understood that Pakistan authorities have lobbied the UK government hard in the last four weeks after uproar was caused following Britain’s decision to remove India from the Red List while keeping Pakistan on the ban list.
The issue erupted after The News reported exclusively - based on interaction with the UK government officials and MPs who had spoken to Ministers Asad Umar and Faisal Sultan – that the Pakistan authorities had failed to send data for several weeks to the UK’s Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC). The information was shared with this reporter by trusted sources within the Pakistan and UK government as well as four British Pakistanis MPs who attended the virtual meeting where this information was passed to the Pakistani ministers.
The UK source told this reporter on Monday that Pakistan didn’t share Covid-19 pandemic data for the month of July and key information in other areas was missing too due to communication failure, but since the Pakistan govt has worked towards ensuring that the data is sent to the UK on a regular basis.
Not only the Pakistan authorities have been sending the data directly but also Yasmin Qureshi MP, who is chair of All Pakistan Parliamentary Group on Pakistan, has been personally sending the data to the UK’s relevant authorities and maintaining communications and facilitating exchanges.
The UK sources have said that they have been receiving the data from Pakistan on a regular basis in the last few weeks but the decision whether to keep Pakistan on the Red List or not will be made by the scientists at the Department of Health.
Another source, who has seen the data, told this reporter that “statistics are lower” in Pakistan but the UK health authorities here have to decide whether these statistics are “enough to meet and pass the test”. The final decision will be made either on Wednesday or Thursday.
A Pakistani source said nothing can be predicted and the UK govt has not given any indication but both sides discussed the rise in positivity cases in the there have been increase in positivity cases in Sindh and some other parts.
A leading travel website here reported that Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey are now “borderline candidates” for removal from the Red List. The website stated that infection rates have started coming down rapidly and on the face of it there is a decent chance that Pakistan could turn amber.
Pakistan’s top diplomat in the UK, High Commissioner Moazzam Ahmad Khan, had criticised the British government’s decision to keep the country on the Red List at the time, saying it was the “wrong approach to assess Pakistan by ignoring science and data.”
The High Commissioner had told Pakistani media: “I am optimistic that Pakistan will come out of the red list on August 25.”
Lack of proper storage facilities exposes wheat to various factors
Omar nominates MNA Barrister Gohar, who is also PTI's chairman, to succeed him in commission
Senator says in every country, number of persons below 18 years was major part of population by big margin
Saif claims there were also videos showing bodies of protesters and this oppression cannot be concealed
Cause of death is still under investigation, as police and forensic teams are collecting evidence from crime scene
Barrister Safdar, representing accused, informed court that 19 new cases had been registered against Bushra
