Reporting by Lama Shammas; Translation by Yusra Ahmed
ISTANBUL (Zaman Alwasl)- The reason behind stop granting ‘residency visa’ for Syrians in Turkey is due to a new agreement signed between the European Union and Turkey, which would be implemented on 1st September 2014, well-informed source in Istanbul-based Immigration Omniyat Center confirmed to Zaman Alwasl.
This agreement would connect the information center in the United European Immigration Centre with Turkish Immigration Center that would stop granting Syrians the ‘exceptional Resident visa’ which will be replaced with 1-year humanitarian visa which allows working.
According to Omniyat Center employee, all Syrians’ files would be transferred to the immigration Center, where they would give their finger-prints instead of doing that in the center, and then their finger-prints would be transferred to the United European Immigration Center. That connection between both Immigration centers would help in identifying illegal immigrants in Europe and if they have finger-prints in Turkey, they would be kept in Europe for up to three years, and then Turkey would be requested to return them to Turkey.
The employee explains that according to the agreement, Turkish people would be able to travel to EU countries without visa after 3 years.
As 9 million of Syrian people forced to flee their homes since March 2011, Turkey has spent billions of dollars sheltering refugees and kept an "open-border" policy throughout the conflict in its southern neighbor.
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