“Prime Minister Gilani’s offer to work with the United States to establish a transparent process on visas that will enable us to undertake full range of activities is a positive development,” said US Ambassador Anne Patterson.

ISLAMABAD: Washington wants Islamabad to put in place a restriction free and uniform visa regime for its diplomats and embassy staff posted here allowing them to carry out ‘full range of activities’.

“We look forward to creation of a visa mechanism that will enable US officials do their jobs without interference,” US Ambassador Anne Patterson said in a statement issued by the embassy’s Office of Public Affairs.

Delays in issuing and extension of visas of American diplomats and other embassy staff posted here remained a major irritant in relations between the two countries.

The government recently issued most of the requested visas in an effort to placate an angry Washington, which had linked it to the release of the deferred Coalition Support Fund reimbursements.

Although, the backlog is yet to be fully cleared and some of the visas are still being processed, Ambassador Patterson acknowledged progress was being made. “Prime Minister Gilani’s offer to work with the United States to establish a transparent process on visas that will enable us to undertake full range of activities … is a positive development.”

The issuance of most of the visas led to release of $349 million out of an outstanding amount of $2.6 billion.

Many of the remaining cases relate to personnel assigned with the Office of Defence Representative for Pakistan (ODRP), which has been at the centre of the dispute over CSF disbursements.

The ODRP has been also accused by the US Government Accounting Office of inconsistently applying CSF guidelines in Pakistan.

With the visa issue nearing resolution, the Americans look to be setting the bar even higher for Islamabad for the release of remaining funds by seeking visa mechanism that ensures a hindrance-free working.

Besides, the visa clampdown, the other concern for the Americans has been enhanced vigilance by the country’s security agencies, which have recently intercepted embassy vehicles for search. While Pakistani authorities insist that the search was necessitated by the deteriorating law and order situation, the US embassy took them as ‘contrived incidents’ and ‘provocative actions’.

A senior US diplomat, speaking to our correspondent, said in addition to a restriction-free regime, Washington also wanted a regular and uniform visa system for all staff based in Pakistan.

“Some of them are given single entry visas for one month, others get multiple visas for a year,” he said, adding this had to be standardised.

He indicated that close to 50 visas requests were still under consideration by Pakistani authorities.

British mission lost hundreds of Pakistani passports

Investigations by the Federal Investigation Agency have not made headway either.

The high commission had instituted an inquiry after a large number of cases of lost passports surfaced last year. Determining the precise number of the lost passports and finding out the place of loss is probably the only progress as yet in investigations about which BHC diplomats are reluctant to share information with the Pakistan government and affected visa seekers.

“We have concluded that 118 passports were lost and the loss took place in Islamabad as against the general impression that they went missing while being transferred to the regional hub in Abu Dhabi,” a senior diplomat said.

He, however, emphasized that the matter was still being investigated and it was difficult to precisely say what caused the loss of such a big number of passports.

Pakistani investigators say the numbers could be much higher and could run into hundreds.

It is, nevertheless, quite clear that the issue has brought the role of two private companies jointly running the visa applications centres under intense scrutiny, particularly after heightened fears that the lost travel documents may end up in the country’s notorious passport black market to which the terrorists also have easy access.

“It is scary to think of such a large number of passports, many of them having valid visas of other countries, falling into the wrong hands. The BHC may need to review its entire system for the security of the documents submitted to it by visa applicants to prevent such occurrences,” a senior Pakistani security official observed.

The serious implications of passport loss were highlighted by a number of terrorist incidents and more recently by investigation into the assassination of an important Hamas leader Mabhouh al-Mahmoud in Dubai.

A spokesman for the British High Commission, Rob Murphy, maintained that the department took the issue very seriously and investigations were already under way.

“We take the integrity of our immigration system very seriously and are investigating these reports as a matter of urgency,” he said in reply to a query.