UK denies talks with US on visa policy changes

London, May 3: Britain denied a report in a US newspaper today which said Washington had talked to London about tightening visa restrictions for British citizens of Pakistani origin travelling to the United States.

The New York Times reported that the US homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, who met British Home Secretary John Reid last month, had discussed changing rules that allow British citizens to travel to the United States without a visa.

He raised his concerns amid a wave of terrorism trials in Britain in which Britons of Pakistani origin have either been accused of or found guilty of planning or carrying out attacks.

The story said one proposal would be to require US visas of all British citizens, a move which would affect millions of Britons who travel to the United States each year. Another proposal would require visas just for Britons of Pakistani origin.

''The New York Times story ... is incorrect,'' a British Foreign Office spokesman said. ''It does not represent British government policy, nor would it be an acceptable proposal.'' ''(The Americans) are aware of our view that changes to the visa waiver programme could cause economic damage to both our countries without materially enhancing the security controls over immigration,'' he said.

A spokesman for the US Department of Homeland Security also said there were ''inaccuracies'' in the story.

''We flatly reject the notion of profiling based upon ethnicity, religion, sex, age, what have you. Country of origin as well,'' the spokesman told BBC radio. ''We are pleased with the visa waiver programme but we have been on record with our desire to strengthen the visa waiver programme.'' A spokeswoman for Britain's Home Office (interior ministry) denied that Chertoff and Reid had discussed any particular group of people at their meeting.

''The suggestion that groups of British citizens of a particular background should be singled out was not made at the meeting and neither would it have been acceptable,'' she said.

Reuters>