Eritrea’s Foreign Minister, Osman Saleh Mohammed denounced the U.S. ban on immigrant visas for its citizens as “unacceptable”.
Nigeria and Eritrea were among six countries, four of them in Africa, added to an expanded version of the U.S. visa ban announced on Friday in a presidential proclamation. Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar were also slapped with a similar ban.
U.S. officials said the countries failed to meet U.S. security and information-sharing standards, which necessitated the new restrictions.
Eritrean Foreign Minister said the government
saw the ban as a political move that would hurt the country’s relations with the United States.
“We find this move unacceptable,” he told Reuters by telephone. “We will, however, not expel the U.S. ambassador,” he added.
The U.S. government also said it will stop issuing “diversity visas” to nationals of Sudan and Tanzania.
The visas, which Trump has criticized, are available by lottery for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration
