| What a discreet, diplomatic way to describe it. Manolo, give that reporter an ambassadorship. |
[YemenPost] A report published by the foreign ministry this month confirmed serious discrepancies in the issuance of diplomatic passports, with a ratio per employee of about 15. While there are 1,000 foreign ministry workers 15,000 passports were issued, about 15 passports per employees.
| I've never had a diplomatic passport. I wonder if Mr. Wife would give me one as an anniversary present? |
Very often Yemeni nationals are trying to obtain diplomatic passports as a way to by-pass visa restrictions and border control as Yemeni nationals have often great difficulties obtaining traveling visas.
Officials revealed that foreign agencies were well aware of Yemen's diplomatic discrepancies and as a result were always treating diplomatic passport holders as potential security risk.
Security sources have also theorized that individuals with links to terror groups could have used diplomatic passports to forge new identities and travel outside of the country undetected by the authorities.
Yafee Press, an online news website, published several testimonies from legitimate diplomats who said they often chose to travel with their regular passport as to avoid the "embarrassment associated with a Yemen diplomatic passport."
Sources within the foreign ministry explained that under the former regime, relatives and associates of diplomats were regularly issued diplomatic passports.
Yemeni refugees abroad confessed that many of them had resorted to buying a diplomatic passport in order to leave Yemen and start a new life in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada or the United States of America. |