Originally posted by Tinkabit
"Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US Citizens at the time and all non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy
for official business.”
I'm having trouble finding any sources for this travel ban story on Pakistan in the 80s.
I thought Pakistan was a US ally in the 80s. And apparently that is the general consensus:
During the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s Pakistan was a major U.S. ally. But relations soured in the 1990s, when sanctions were applied by
the U.S. over suspicions of Pakistan's nuclear activities. (source)
I
found a reprint of a Washington Post article of 1998, that shows a table with the
number and type of sanctions the US imposed on some countries.
We can see there an "
Air and travel ban" on Angola in 1997, an "
air travel ban" on Libya in 1978.
On Pakistan, however, we see this:
U.S. imposes limited sanctions (1979)
U.S. waives sanctions during Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (1980s)
Travel
warnings on the other hand, are quite often, but do not impose a travel ban on citizens. For example, on
this page on the State Department's website, we have a listing of the Current
Travel Warnings.
Pakistan is listed with the date of
November 21, 2008.
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against non-essential travel to Pakistan in light of the threat of terrorist activity.
Does anyone have a source for this Pakistan travel ban in the 1980s? I find that story very fishy...