PPP defends visa powers to Haqqani

US special forces had not entered Pakistan on visas, says Gilani

ISLAMABAD: A 2010 secret authorization of the then ambassador to the US by the then prime minister to skirt security protocols for visa issuance has stirred up a firestorm. The PPP, which is in power back then, fiercely defended the move, saying the letter sent to the Foreign Office by the office of Yousaf Raza Gilani was neither new nor wrong.

“Its [the letter’s] regurgitation at this time is politically motivated and aimed at diverting attention from real issues,” PPP spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar said in a statement on Friday. Pakistan’s embassies in important world capitals also had representatives of relevant government departments, including security agencies.

Senator Babar said that although Haqqani was empowered by the prime minister to issue visas, this did not mean that due process within the Embassy, involving representatives of other relevant departments, had been circumvented.

The ambassador had been empowered to issue visas only to visitors whose purpose of visit was clearly defined and duly recommended by the US State Department. “The purpose was to expedite, not bypass, the process.” It was also not an authorisation for issuing visas to US special forces, he maintained.

According to Senator Babar, the central question needing answer was how al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden had lived near a cantonment for nearly a decade, directing terrorism the world over. “The central question is not who, following due process, [issued] visas to some Americans who may have eventually been able to hunt and take OBL out. No amount of verbal jugglery, media circus and mudslinging on the previous PPP government will erase this question from the public mind,” he said.



He said that a thorough inquiry was needed into visa issuance policies and procedures across the board from 2001 onwards when global hunt for OBL started. “Targeting some individuals or a political government for political gains will not advance national security interests,” he said.

“National security interests will (only) be advanced by a credible non-partisan probe into the visa policies and procedures across the board and across the time.

Investigations must also be made into how many Americans entered Pakistan through the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, with or without visas, during the Musharraf regime.”

Such investigations, he said, could not be launched by way of ‘selective leaks or public statements’ in the media, adding that a starting point “can be the Abbottabad Commission probe”.

In a related development, Yousuf Raza Gilani said that he had never allowed Haqqani to issue visas to members of US special forces.

“The envoy had only been allowed to issue visas conditionally,” Gilani told reporters in Multan on Friday afternoon. “Empowering any ambassador did not imply he could resort to illegal means [during the conduct of his services],” he said.

“An ambassador cannot bypass rules and regulations,” Gilani said, calling upon the authorities to scrutinise the visas issued between 2002 and 2017.

Dismissing the notion that he had violated any rule during his tenure, Gilani asserted: “This is a non-issue… if you want to make it an issue, let the scrutiny begin from 2002.”

Elements carrying out the Abbottabad operation had not entered the country on a visa.