Pakistan and Saudi Arabia Work to Ease Travel Restrictions

Pakistan and Saudi Arabian foreign ministers told reporters that the two countries discussed on Tuesday how to ease travel restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, which have prevented about 400,000 Pakistani workers from returning to their jobs in the Kingdom. Islamabad raised the issue with Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, who is visiting Pakistan for one day. Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi stated at a joint press conference in Islamabad that about 400,000 of the two million Pakistani workers in Saudi Arabia have been stranded in their home country due to travel restrictions. Saudi Arabia currently bans direct travel from Pakistan and has only approved the AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which means anyone arriving in the Kingdom without receiving one of these vaccines must quarantine at a cost that most Pakistanis say they cannot afford. Most Pakistanis have received the Chinese vaccine. However, Prince Faisal mentioned that his government has provided vaccine doses to around 1.7 million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia.