Krutoi: Belarus-Russia visa recognition agreement will come into force in December
19:03, 13 March
Photo: BELTA
The agreement on mutual recognition of visas between Belarus and Russia is to come into force at the end of the year, Belarus’ Ambassador to Russia Dmitry Krutoi said at the meeting of the High-Level Group of the Council of Ministers of the Union State, BelTA has learned.
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At the beginning of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to ratify the intergovernmental agreement on mutual recognition of visas and to address other issues related to the entry of foreign nationals and stateless persons into the Union State. The agreement was inked in Minsk on 19 June 2020. Its goal was to create a legal framework to regulate the way foreign nationals and stateless persons cross the Belarus-Russia border. The agreement allows third-country nationals to enter, leave, stay, and go in transit through the territory of Belarus and Russia using a visa issued by one of the two states as well as identification documents.
According to Dmitry Krutoi, another important issue discussed at the meeting dealt with information systems that were identified as key ones for the current year. “The first important topic in this field is our visa agreement signed a long time ago in relation to third-country nationals. Intensive work is underway. Today a task has been set to finalize the action plan by the 25th anniversary of the Union State Treaty. The plan itself is almost ready. In other words, the unified information system should be operational and the agreement should come into force by 8 December. This will have a huge impact on tourist and business flows, and will make border crossing easier for our residents,” noted the ambassador.
