Radio “Azatlyk” reported on 20 June that following the visit of Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukahmmedov to Moscow international travel passports are being issued to dual nationals to Moscow.
Dual nationals are citizens of Turkmenistan who had obtained citizenship of the Russian Federation after 2003 and were denied the issuance of Turkmen passports by the Turkmen authorities for 19 years because of the termination of the agreement on dual citizenship between the two countries.
Turkmenistan’s Migration Office is currently accepting documents for international travel passports from those citizens who had obtained Russian citizenship from 2002 to 2015.
“Passports will be issued in a month to those who have submitted the documents.The fee is 43 US dollars for first time applicants whereas those who extend their passport pay in manats”, the correspondent of Radio “Azatlyk” reports.
According to him, those who submitted the documents were surprised by “unusual” politeness of the Migration Office employees.
“There were few applicants. The majority of dual nationals might have left the country or are not aware that this service is now available”, – the correspondent says.
Dual citizenship agreement between Turkmenistan and Russia had existed for 10 years and was abolished in April 2003.After termination of the agreement Russia continued to grant its citizenship to Turkmen nationals.
The Turkmen authorities refused to issue documents to those who had been granted Russian citizenship after 2003 urging residents to choose citizenship of one country and did not give any official comment in this connection.
In July 2019 Ashgabat and regional offices of Turkmenistan’s Migration Office started accepting applications for international travel passports from dual nationals. However, passports had been issued only to some groups of people, including children and senior citizens.
In the meantime Russia’s Foreign Ministry reported that on 21 June in a telephone conversation Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkmen counterpart Rashid Meredov discussed bilateral cooperation and preparations for the sixth Caspian summit.The post “Azatlyk”: Following the meeting of Berdymukhammedov and Putin Turkmenistan starts issuing international travel passports to dual nationals first appeared on Chronicles of Turkmenistan.