Russian Federation will abandon the visa-free regime with Turkey

“The leadership of the Russian Federation made a decision to abandon the visa-free regime with Turkey starting from January 1, 2016”, – announced the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov during the press conference in Moscow. “Terrorist threats coming from Turkey are quite real”, – S. Lavrov explained the reason of the taken decision.

Currently, the citizens of Turkey have the right to enter Russia without a visa for the period up to 30 days. Longer stay in the country as well as work or studies require obtaining a Russian visa. This order has been established by the agreement on the visa-free travel signed between Russia and Turkey in 2010.

According to Sergey Lavrov, the decision on the abolition of visa-free regime with Turkey has already been made, though there are no official announcements from the Russian side of the changes in the order of entering the country. According to the newspaper Izvestia citing a source in the diplomatic circles, Russia can start issuing visas to Turkish citizens in the last week of this December. The package of documents required for getting Russian visa won’t practically differ from the one existed before the introduction of the visa-free regime.

“The processing time of new visas (tourist) for Turkish citizens will be the same as for the existing ones (education and work), one deadlines will be established for urgent visas and others – for non-urgent”, – Izvestia quotes the press attache of the Russian embassy in Ankara Igor Mityakov.

Sanctions against Turkey will also affect tourism industry, transportation and other services. By December, 10 it is planned to prepare a list of organizations which have the right to attract workers from Turkey. The organizations not included in this list won’t be allowed to hire Turkish nationals. At the same time, a list of Turkish companies having a limit on the work in Russia will also be prepared.

As reported, the duration and the nature of the restrictive measures can be changed according to the actions of Turkey.