Ankara hopes visa-free travel with Russia be ultimately resumed - Turkish top diplomat

MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/. Ankara hopes visa-free travel with Russia will ultimately be resumed, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview with TASS. "Russian ordinary passport holders enjoy a visa-free regime to visit Turkey, and we never suspended the visa-free travel to Turkey for Russian citizens. While Russian ordinary passport holders enjoy this visa-free regime, our citizens unfortunately cannot benefit from visa-free travel to Russia," he said. "In order to further enhance our cooperation in various fields, the Visa Waiver Agreement should be reinstated and fully implemented, with all its provisions." According to the Turkish top diplomat, "people-to-people contacts are an important part of our multi-faceted relations." Russia and Turkey signed a visa waiver agreement in 2010 allowing citizens of the two countries enter each other’s territories visa-free and stay there for a term of 30 days. Russia suspended visa-free travel with Turkey from January 1, 2016 following the November 24, 2015 incident when Turkey had downed a Russian Su-24 bomber at the border with Syria. Turkey obliged Russian holders of service passports to obtain entry visas from April 15, 2016. Holders of diplomatic and regular international passports could enter the country visa-free. From June 1, 2016, the Turkish side expanded visa requirement to professional drivers and accompanying persons of Russian citizenship engaged in cargo a passenger businesses. In October 2016, the Turkish side raised the issue of canceling visa restrictions but Russia suspended talks on that matter for an indefinite period after the murder of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov on December 19, 2016. Read more