Ankara (Middle East Eye) – Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and his Norwegian counterpart Anniken Huitfeldt, announced last week that Norwegian citizens would be allowed to enter Turkey for six months without a passport due to a shortage of the chips required for new passports in Norway.
In the replies below Huitfeldt’s tweet of the announcement, the frustration of Turkish citizens was easy to see.
Most of them were complaining about the difficulty for Turks in obtaining a Schengen visa, a system that allows free movement within 26 European countries and which Norway is a part of despite not being a member of the European Union.
A number of Turks highlighted the clear imbalance between Turkey and Norway’s visa policies in relation to each other.
Twitter user AKA wrote: “Dear Ambassador, such news can only be good if the same conditions apply to Turkish citizens. Otherwise, Norwegian citizens already get an easy visa. Turkish citizens have to document seven generations of their family for a visa.”
Opposition figures also criticized the government for not obtaining reciprocity in bilateral relations with EU countries.
Currently, EU citizens can enter Turkey without a visa, while Turkish citizens are obliged to make an application for a Schengen visa to enter the EU via a commissioning company, declare dozens of documents, pay hundreds of euros and wait for weeks for a decision.
The list of documents that a Turkish citizen must submit to obtain a short-term Schengen visa includes:
Passport, expired passports, copies of previous U.S., UK and Schengen visas, copy of Turkish identity card, application form, biometric photograph, health travel insurance, visa fee, proof of hotel booking, proof of flight booking, letter from workplace that specifies the applicant’s salary, vacation duration, date of recruitment, circular of signature, good standing certificate, trade registry gazette, copy of tax certificate, working documents from social security institution, work contract, documents that prove income such as bank statements with an official signature, deeds of properties, and a deposit that requires the applicant to keep a certain amount of money in their account.
If the applicant is a student, certificate of enrolment and the above-listed documents of his/her parents are required along with a sponsorship letter. If the applicant is unemployed, a sponsorship letter from one of his/her relatives is needed.
Long queues outside the commissioning companies’ offices are common, as their appointment system is often faulty.
Frustrated customers are increasingly filing complaints against the companies over their lack of professionalism in dealing with applications, according to a media report last month.