Pakistan to not be included in travel ban list: White House spokesperson

WASHINGTON: White House on Saturday rejected reports that Pakistan will also be included in the list of countries facing travel ban.  

United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order that banned travel into the US for citizens from these seven countries for 90 days: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

A White House spokesperson while speaking to BBC said that there are no immediate plans by the Trump administration to impose travel ban on any other country, adding that the countries which were reluctant to provide required information to the United States of America were named in the Executive Order.

He said that the authorities concerned from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon provided the required details. However, in case these countries fail to continue the required cooperation, they can also be put in the list along with the seven countries.

Earlier, a top White House official suggested more countries like Pakistan could be added to the ban list of seven Muslim countries.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus while defending Trump’s decision in an interview, said, “You can point to other countries that have similar problems like Pakistan and others – perhaps we need to take it further.”

Priebus said during the interview that immediate steps to be taken included further vetting for people travelling in and out of those countries for now.

He added that if the administration tipped off their decision beforehand, it could have meant that ‘potential terrorists’ would have tried to enter the US.

“We’re not going to advertise to the world that we’re going to put a stop or at least further vetting on travel in and out of our country from these seven places,” he said.

“All this is identifying the seven countries," Priebus explained. "The reason we chose those seven countries is that both the Congress and the Obama administration identified them as being the seven countries that were most identifiable with dangerous terrorism taking place there."

While, the US embassy on Thursday clarified that the visa policy for Pakistan was not being changed and Trump’s administration has not given any exclusive instructions regarding the country.

Speaking to Geo News, a spokesperson for the embassy said that Pakistan was not being considered for a visa ban at the moment and the visa policy is the same as it was before Trump took charge.