Foreign businesspeople who visit Iran can likely say goodbye to their chances of entering the US. It’s quite a deterrent to those pondering some time in the Islamic Republic. But the Iranians, it seems, are looking to do away with this problem by pledging to such potential visitors that they will not have their passport stamped on entry and exit.
The move has been relayed by an official privy to visa changes on the way, Otagh Iran Online reported on May 28.
Visa-on-arrival tourists were given the option to not have their passports stamped in a change brought in last year.
The latest alteration to immigration control was described by Mohammad Javad Qanbari, an official with the Iran International Exhibitions Company, who reportedly spoke on the sidelines of a construction exhibition held in Tehran this week.
It is not clear whether the move will include businesspeople from non-visa-on-arrival countries. Nor has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the change as yet.
Iran began to relax its visa issuance for visitors in 2016 after the nuclear deal, which the US the following year unilaterally walked out of, took effect. Visas-on-arrival were made available to nationals of 42 countries. Shortly after, the country started an e-visa pilot under which people fill in their details before arrival in Iran and pay in cash for an e-visa at the border entry point.
Iran previously waived visa requirements for citizens of seven countries—namely Azerbaijan, Syria, Turkey, Georgia, Bolivia, Egypt and Lebanon—and has said it intends to ease visa restrictions for citizens of another 28 countries by the end of the 2019/2020 Persian year, which falls next March.
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