Turkey has officially approved an agreement that allows Ukrainian citizens to travel to Turkey based on ID cards and without international passports. The date when the agreement will enter into force may be announced within two weeks.
Today, May 20, the Turkish authorities officially published the decision 2017/10324 on amendment of the procedure for mutual travel and recognition of the new (internal) Ukrainian passport (ID cards) as a travel document for Ukrainian citizens traveling to Turkey," the Ukrainian State Migration Service’s head Maksym Sokoliuk wrote on his Facebook page, the CFTS reports.
According to Sokoliuk, Ukrainian citizens have already been issued more than 550,000 ID cards.
As reported, Ukrainian citizens will be able to travel to Turkey and pass through its territory on transit without passports if they have ID cards. As before, citizens of Ukraine will be able to stay in Turkey for a maximum of 90 days within a period of 180 days. Citizens of Turkey will also be able to visit Ukraine in the same manner. Citizens of Ukraine without ID cards will be able to travel to Turkey as before (using their international passports without visas).
According to Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Andrii Sybiha, a record number of Ukrainian citizens (more than 1 million tourists) visited Turkey last year. "Therefore, we are currently in fifth place among other foreign countries whose citizens visit Turkey. On the other hand, the Turkish tourist flow to Ukraine grew by 25-28% to about 200,000. This was facilitated by the establishment of additional air links and the launch of a direct Ankara-Kyiv flight," said the ambassador.
