The families of United States Consulate personnel have returned to Jeddah, said Thomas Duffy, the newly-arrived US Consul General who assumed his duties on June 29. “We have brought the families back thanks to the efforts and arrangements taken around the Consulate General compound and also thanks to the strong steps taken by the Saudi government and society to fight terrorism,” Consul General Duffy said in a press conference Sunday. “I'm confident in the cooperation between us and the government and I feel comfortable enough to bring my family here. I am also actively recruiting more officers to come here on family status,” he added. Families were evacuated from the US Consulate compound in 2004 when a terrorist attack on the building left five employees dead and others wounded. The attack also resulted in all visa issuing services being moved to Riyadh. Consul General Duffy said that the consular section will again issue visas in Jeddah, but would not give a specific date by which that would take place. “We know how inconvenient it is for some of you to travel all that way to Riyadh to apply for a travel visa, so one of the main things I'm going to work on here is to restore normal visa issuing services soon,” he said. The Consul General stressed the importance of issuing visas to Saudi students going to study in the United States. “We have a visa appointment system, and we give priority to students to make sure that they can reach their educational institutions on time,” he said. He further stressed the need to apply early for a US visa, particularly for students. “The visa procedure is very complicated and there are many information and security checks which take a long time, so we ask people to apply early, at least six weeks to two months before the planned travel time,” he said. Regarding the travel warning recently issued by the US Embassy in Riyadh, Consul General Duffy said: “There are thousands of American citizens living in my consulate district and my duty is to look after American citizens and to pass on all security information to them. If we receive information of any threat which is credible enough for me to restrict the activities of my colleagues here, I have a duty to warn all American citizens as well.”
