Pakistan optimistic, UK cautious as red list review due

LONDON: The British government is set to announce its new travel review of dozens of countries, including making a key decision whether to move Pakistan to amber list, out of the travel ban red list, or continue its categorisation.

Trusted Pakistani sources familiar with Pakistan’s lobbying with the British government have told The News that the chances of Pakistan coming out of the red list are “fifty, fifty”.

However, Pakistan has asked the UK government 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 his British counterpart 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 it is understood that Pakistan has issued over 300 visas only in the last ten 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 fell short of the requirement last time, has improved massively.

It is 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 Asad Umar, the federal minister for planning, development and special initiatives, and Faisal Sultan, special adviser to PM on health – 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 Pakistan and UK governments as well as four British-Pakistani 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 did not share Covid data for the month of July and key information in other areas was missing too due to communication failure, but since the Pakistan government 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 (today) or Thursday (tomorrow).

A Pakistani source said nothing can be predicted and the UK government has not given any indication but both sides discussed the rise 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.