Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

The Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs is de­fend­ing an agree­ment signed be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, al­low­ing diplo­mat­ic and of­fi­cial pass­port hold­ers to en­ter the UAE visa-free. Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the UAE For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry, UAE cit­i­zens hold­ing diplo­mat­ic, spe­cial, or­di­nary, and “mis­sion” pass­ports are now ex­empt from the visa re­quire­ment for en­try to T&T.

How­ev­er, the agree­ment is sig­nif­i­cant­ly more lim­it­ed for T&T na­tion­als, as all oth­er pass­port types, in­clud­ing those is­sued to or­di­nary cit­i­zens, still re­quire a visa to en­ter the UAE.

The agree­ment was signed on Fri­day dur­ing a meet­ing be­tween UAE Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Sheikh Ab­dul­lah bin Za­yed Al Nahyan and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in New York on the side­lines of the 80th ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers was on hand to sign the agree­ment on be­half of T&T.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Sobers ad­dressed con­cerns about the agree­ment’s seem­ing­ly “lop­sided” na­ture. He ex­plained that the cur­rent visa ex­emp­tion agree­ment was just the first phase.

“In en­ter­ing in­to any type of com­mer­cial re­la­tion­ships with the UAE, the first step is to es­tab­lish, at least for them, they would pre­fer that you es­tab­lish this visa ex­emp­tion sit­u­a­tion. And then they will move on to the oth­er com­mer­cial arrange­ments that we have, that we’re putting in place for them, which would be the [Cou­va] Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. And al­so, we have some oth­er in­fra­struc­tur­al projects that they are look­ing at,” he said. “They want­ed their cit­i­zens who are Emi­ratis to be able to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go visa-free. And then our cit­i­zens, at this point in time, would still re­quire a visa. But the sec­ondary part of the arrange­ment on the ground to the com­mer­cial deal­ings, to lift the visa re­stric­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Sobers added.

While the min­is­ter could not give a time­line for when visa re­stric­tions would be com­plete­ly lift­ed for T&T, he did con­firm the min­istry was al­ready in the sec­ond phase of dis­cus­sions.

Sobers was adamant that the agree­ment es­tab­lished strong ties with the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates. “What it means is that we are es­tab­lish­ing a firmer and stronger re­la­tion­ship with one of the most em­i­nent coun­tries in the Mid­dle East. And that is where our eco­nom­ic diplo­ma­cy is go­ing to those types of lev­els, to those types of heights. And it will on­ly work out well for all cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

This ex­emp­tion agree­ment is the lat­est in a se­ries of for­eign pol­i­cy moves at the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. On Sep­tem­ber 25, T&T for­mal­ly es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with the Prin­ci­pal­i­ty of Mona­co. Two days lat­er, on Sep­tem­ber 27, T&T es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Tunisia. The T&T del­e­ga­tion al­so held dis­cus­sions with Rwan­da, and an Air Ser­vices Agree­ment is ex­pect­ed to be signed be­tween the two coun­tries. The Gen­er­al As­sem­bly wraps up on Sep­tem­ber 30.