Portugal suspends visas for Iranians, cites security reasons
Portugal
has suspended the issuance of entry visas for Iranian nationals for unspecified
security reasons, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva told a parliamentary
committee on Tuesday.
Answering
a question from a committee member on whether such a move had been taken,
Santos Silva said during the televised meeting: "Yes, we suspended those
for security reasons... I will provide explanations later, but not publicly."
"Portugal
does not play around with entry into its territory," he added, without
disclosing when the decision was taken.
The
chairman declared the meeting closed after about two hours without further
off-camera testimony.
Joao
Goncalves Pereira, lawmaker from the conservative CDS-PP party, said: "We
received information that visas for Iranians had been suspended for two or
three weeks, and we just wanted to confirm that."
He
would not say what the source of that original information was or whether any
Iranian nationals had complained about the situation.
Questioned
by reporters after the committee, Santos Silva said the suspension had
"nothing to do with the quality of Portugal's bilateral relations with
Tehran."
"It
was a temporary suspension and we hope to resume very shortly," he added,
quoted by Portuguese news agency Lusa.