KARACHI, Sept 5: US Consul General Douglas C. Rohn has said that US travel advisory for Pakistan cannot be changed as ground realities do not allow it and because of constant terrorist threat.
Addressing the members of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) late on Thursday evening, the US diplomat said the travel advisory by the US State Department for Pakistan had been issued keeping in view of ground realities and unless there was no change it could not be altered.
He further said there could be no double standard for travel advice as it had to be the same for all US nationals.
Referring to a point raised by PHMA chairman Zubair Motiwala, Mr Douglas said that he could not give any guarantee that textiles exporters would not face social compliance from his country where strong lobbies inside the Congress have their own stakes in textile industry.
The US diplomat further said it was a very complex issue and one could not lay down a decisive rule because a law could not be changed over night.
Mr Douglas said in a US Congress of 535, there were members who had direct stakes in textile industry, therefore, it was impossible to ensure that they would not use social compliance issues like child labour, environments, safety, etc., to check textile imports coming from developing countries, including Pakistan.
In support of his argument, the US diplomat said that only two weeks back the Karachi police received an information that there was a threat against US Consulate upon which “we have to ask our staff to immediately vacate the premises.”
Mr Douglas said: “We are working in a very tense situation and it was on record that many incidents of the past could have been averted as there was some information with the US officials about them.”
In reply to another point raised by PHMA (South Zone) chairman Aslam Ahmed Karsaz, the US consul general said that it was not in his knowledge that the US was granting 10 years visa to the Indian citizen, but added that such matters are always on reciprocal basis.
He assured that the US Commerce Department would be asked to assist in providing information about business community and importers in the US, but suggested that they should first approach the commercial section of the consulate in Karachi where all assistance would be given in this regard.
Responding to a demand from the PHMA for assistance in human resource development, Mr Douglas said that already the US government had committed $1.5 billion for five years during the President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to the US. He said that a substantial amount of funds was allocated towards such development works.
The diplomat said that $300 million had been allocated for information technology programme, $100 million for education, $115m for health and $58 million for good governance. In total, he said, there would an assistance of around $296 million for this year.
At present, he said nothing could be done about long delays in getting US visas, but hoped that as the system improved the time period might come down. Since name of Muslims, the US diplomat said, were similar in most of the cases, therefore, it took time to get clearance from Washington.
He agreed that there was some image problem with Pakistan and said a lot is yet to be done in this regard. Citing an example, he said recently with Exim Bank there was conference through satellite with Pakistani bankers. Mr Douglas said this was excellent meeting as it removed a lot of misgivings about Pakistan.
The Consul General advised that such conferences and meetings between different segments of society should be encouraged as they could help remove wrong notions about each other.