US ties with Pak on visa, envoy issues complicated: Nuland

Washington: America’s relationship with Pakistan on the issue of visas and the treatment being meted out to its diplomat serving in this South Asian nation has been a complicated one, even as the two countries have made some progress in this regard, a US official said today. “It has been complicated,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters when asked about increase in instances of harassment to US diplomats in Pakistan as reported by an official State Department report. [caption id=“attachment_357166” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland. AFP”]  [/caption] “We’ve made some progress on some of these, and we have to just continue to work on them as we deal with other things,” she said. “With regard to the issues, we have had with regard to our diplomats, we have been in consultation with the Pakistani side on these issues to make sure that the rules of the road are clear and it is absolutely understood by the Pakistani side what functions these individuals are involved in. And we’ll continue to do that,” Nuland said. “With regard to some of the things that you’ve seen in the Pakistani media, we work very hard to ensure that we are clear and within the Vienna Convention with regard to the behaviour of our diplomats, not just in Pakistan, but around the world,” she said when told that there have been a lot of reports coming out of Pakistan that US diplomats have been stopped and found with various weapons, which they perhaps not licensed to have at the time in that area. PTI