WASHINGTON Ñ The Bush administration has decided to remove Saudi
Arabia from a list of nations granted preferred status for U.S. visas.
The administration's decision ends a longtime practice in which Saudi
applicants could apply for visas through travel agencies. Officials said the
U.S. embassy in Riyad will now process all visa applications and interview
everybody from ages 12 to 70, Middle East Newsline reported.
Officials said the new policy came after heavy criticism that the State
Department continued to maintain the so-called visa express policy in Saudi
Arabia in the aftermath of the Islamic suicide attacks on New York and
Washington on Sept. 11.
Fifteen of the 19 attackers were Saudi nationals who
were said to have benefited from a U.S. policy that favored visa
applications from the kingdom.
"The embassy in Saudi Arabia recommended to us, and we supported the
recommendation, for them to move now to interview 100 percent of the
applicants and to take all the applications directly," State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said. "So they've made announcements in Saudi
Arabia to applicants and travel agents to say that they will no longer
accept visas through that procedure."
Boucher said the U.S. embassy in Riyad will demand that Saudi nationals
ages 12 to 70 must personally hand in their visa applications. He said the
embassy intends to "interview virtually all applicants above the age of 12."
The new system was launched in the Riyad embassy on Saturday, officials
said. They said a State Department team was sent to Saudi Arabia and helped
design the new regime in accordance with recommendations by the U.S. embassy
in Riyad.
[The new U.S. policy comes amid reports of widespread theft of Saudi
passports by Iraqis and other Arabs who seek to enter Europe and the United
States. The London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily reported on Wednesday that
5,610 Saudi passports were lost or stolen over the last eight months and
were found sold in such countries as Jordan.]
On Monday, the U.S. embassy in Riyad announced that all applicants above
12 will be interviewed by consular staffers. The embassy said the issuance
of a visa will take at least five weeks.
Until now, the embassy had interviewed a small minority of Saudis and
processed visa applications sent from certified travel agents in the
kingdom. Travel agents have reported a decrease of more than 40 percent in
Saudi visitors to the United States over the past six months.
