The difficulties of getting a UK visa in Erbil

 

LONDON--Jason McCartney MP, the Chairman of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on the Kurdistan Region, tabled a parliamentary question and received an answer from a British Home Office minister, which reveals that from April 2014 to March 2015, 2,895 applications were made via the Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Erbil and 1,600 were rejected. That is a refusal rate of 55%.

The official answer provides the factual basis of efforts by the APPG to seek changes in the operation of the visa system, which could also be examined by the Foreign Affairs Committee, when it is established.

The difficulties in securing British visas has long been a major bone of contention for Kurdish political and business leaders as well as those wishing to travel to the UK for personal and health reasons.

Leaders of the Erbil Chamber of Commerce told a British trade mission in May that, following the rejection of 24 out of 26 delegates to a trade event in London organised by Baroness Nicholson, also the government's Trade Envoy to Iraq, they decided to boycott the event.

Pressure from the APPG and others has resulted in streamlining the visa application process. People no longer have to travel to Amman and wait for their visas to be processed. They can make the application at the Visa Application Centre in Erbil.

Visas are completed online without any interviews. One senior British diplomat in Iraq said “This is a wasta-free process, what matters most is that people apply in good time with full supporting documentation”.

Another senior British foreign policy practitioner in London said that British diplomats and politicians should be able to recommend who gets a visa based on their assessment of what serves the British national interest.

APPG Director Gary Kent examines the issue in more detail at http://rudaw.net/english/opinion/01072015