Video-Conference Meeting among the Heads of the Migration Services and Related Authorities of the Member and Observer States of the Turkic Council was held on 7 May 2020 to discuss the negative impact of the pandemic on the citizens of the Parties who are staying in each other’s territory and to take joint actions to settle their permit, visa and other migration related issues.
The meeting was hosted by Vusal Huseynov, Chief of the State Migration Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan representing the current Chairman-in-Office and attended by Baghdad Amreyev, Secretary General of the Turkic Council, Sabyrzhan Seitzhanov, Deputy Chair of the Migration Service Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Bolotbek Ibraimzhanov, Chairman of the State Migration Service under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, Abdullah Ayaz, Director-General of the Directorate General of Migration Management of the Republic of Turkey, Bakhtiyor Tursunov, Head of the Agency for External Labor Migration under the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations of the Republic of Uzbekistan, József Seres, Deputy Director of the National Directorate General for Aliens Policing of Hungary.
Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev briefed the Parties on the outcomes of the Extraordinary Summit of the Presidents of the Turkic Council held on 10 April 2020 and provided information on the Meetings of the Ministers of Transport, Economy-Trade and Customs of the Turkic Council which were held via video-conferences following the Extraordinary Summit.
Heads of the Migration Services and Related Authorities of the Member and Observer States exchanged information on taken measures, applied procedures, and statistics related to settling the visa and residence/work permit of the citizens of the Parties and discussed the ways to support and assist the citizens of the Member and Observer States who are temporarily staying for several purposes such as studying and working in each other’s territories.
Parties agreed not taking administrative/punitive actions against each other’s citizens who violated visa and residence permit during this process.
They underlined the importance of providing comprehensive assistance and migration benefits to the citizens in each other’s territories including waiting zones at airports and border crossing points and temporarily relax immigration requirements, allowing migrants to remain in the destination country beyond the usual time limit.
At the end of the meeting, taking into account the considerable amount of citizens living in each other’s territories, the Parties agreed on the proposal of the Secretary General to create Migration Coordination Group in order to inform each other timely and coordinate the necessary measures to solve visa and migration issues of the citizens as well as implementation of the agreed decisions and further expansion of cooperation during and after pandemic.
