US rubbishes rumours of travel warning for Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Refuting a false “travel warning” for Pakistan amid the ongoing political turmoil in the country, the US State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) on Sunday clarified that it had not issued any travel advisory for the country in June. A fake travel warning was circulating on social media platforms for the past couple of days, urging the US citizens of Pakistan origin to avoid using National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP) while travelling to Pakistan. “If you are travelling to Pakistan from the US, Canada, you should not use NICOP. Instead get a Pakistani visa on US/Canada passport,” read the fake travel warning. Reacting to the fake document, the SCA said:

“We’re aware of a fake travel warning circulating.” It added: “As a reminder, all our alerts and messages to the US citizens in Pakistan are posted here [US embassy’s website].” The US last issued a security alert for Pakistan on May 15. “Due to the ongoing potential for road closures and/or traffic delays, especially within Islamabad’s Red Zone, the US Embassy in Islamabad cancelled all routine consular appointments for Tuesday, May 16, 2023,” read the alert. The advisory had further said that the embassy continued to restrict movements of embassy personnel to official and mission-essential travel only.