Brent Pin­heiro 

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt 

Trinidad and To­ba­go has signed an agree­ment with the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates al­low­ing diplo­mat­ic and of­fi­cial pass­port hold­ers to en­ter the UAE visa-free. Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the UAE For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry, UAE cit­i­zens hold­ing diplo­mat­ic, spe­cial, or­di­nary, and "mis­sion" pass­ports are now ex­empt from the visa re­quire­ment for en­try to Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, the agree­ment is sig­nif­i­cant­ly more lim­it­ed for T&T na­tion­als, as all oth­er pass­port types, in­clud­ing those is­sued to or­di­nary cit­i­zens, still re­quire a visa to en­ter the UAE. 

The agree­ment was signed on Fri­day dur­ing a meet­ing be­tween UAE Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs H.H. Sheikh Ab­dul­lah bin Za­yed Al Nahyan and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in New York on the side­lines of the 80th ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers was on hand to sign the agree­ment on be­half of Trinidad & To­ba­go.  

This ex­emp­tion agree­ment is the lat­est in a se­ries of for­eign pol­i­cy wins at this week’s UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. On Sep­tem­ber 25, T&T for­mal­ly es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with the Prin­ci­pal­i­ty of Mona­co. Two days lat­er, on Sep­tem­ber 27, T&T es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Tunisia. The T&T del­e­ga­tion al­so held dis­cus­sions with Rwan­da, and an Air Ser­vices Agree­ment is ex­pect­ed to be signed be­tween the two coun­tries. The Gen­er­al As­sem­bly wraps up on Sep­tem­ber 30th.