New Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers has held talks with the Unit­ed King­dom gov­ern­ment about the visa re­stric­tions im­posed on T&T na­tion­als ear­li­er this year.

Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that Sobers held talks on Tues­day with British High Com­mis­sion­er Jon Mark Dean.

He said the dis­cus­sions were held af­ter Sobers met with him, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der and for­mer UNC sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen.

Both meet­ings were cen­tred around the UK visa is­sue.

Sturge said an in­for­mal dis­cus­sion was held on the repa­tri­a­tion of T&T na­tion­als in Syr­ia and Iraq.

In March, Dean an­nounced that all na­tion­als of T&T were now re­quired to have a visa to en­ter the UK, in­clud­ing for short vis­its. The de­ci­sion, made pub­lic on March 12, came in re­sponse to what the UK gov­ern­ment de­scribed as a “sig­nif­i­cant in­crease” in na­tion­als ar­riv­ing as vis­i­tors and then claim­ing asy­lum. 

Both for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Sobers’ pre­de­ces­sor Dr Amery Browne, at­tempt­ed to deal with the is­sue, which was heav­i­ly crit­i­cised by lo­cals.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Sobers for an up­date on the meet­ing but was un­suc­cess­ful. Sturge, while he con­firmed the talks were held, could not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails and said the For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter should be con­tact­ed.

On his last day in of­fice as prime min­is­ter on March 16, Dr Kei­th Row­ley called on T&T to with­draw from the Privy Coun­cil in re­sponse to the im­po­si­tion.

“It is un­just; it is dis­grace­ful that they would dis­re­gard our wider na­tion­al in­ter­est, put a fee on us and tell us, while you have to come to us to have our law lords tell you what is right and wrong, you have to pay for a visa to come and do that,” the for­mer prime min­is­ter said then.