Türkiye starts printing biometric passports

ANKARA

Türkiye has started printing its own biometric passports as of Aug. 29, the country’s interior minister said at a press conference held at the site where the first “fully Turkish” passport was printed.

Süleyman Soylu gathered with journalists late on Aug. 29 at the General Directorate of Civil Registration and Nationality, an affiliate of his ministry, in the capital Ankara.

Showing a prototype of the new Turkish passport, the minister listed its specialties, saying that “there are 27 security points on the passport.”

“On the cover, it writes ‘Türkiye,’ and there is a tulip symbol. There are different chips inside, some small, some large. The new passport is more modern and of good quality.”

“There is a photo of the Hagia Sophia Mosque on the middle pages. There are also photos of other landmarks of the country, such as the Çanakkale Bridge, the Çamlıca Mosque, the İshak Pasha Palace, and the famous houses of [the Black Sea province of] Amasya.”

Earlier, a European company was printing Turkish passports, however, the company could not face the country’s demands due to the chip crisis that started worldwide just after the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Following the decision to “make own passports,” Türkiye will now print “other countries’ passports, too.”

“We have an agreement with Hungary and will print some 250,000 Hungarian passports in a year. We then will print French passports,” Soylu said.

When asked about the demand from Turkish citizens for passports, the minister stated, “The ministry has supplied some 1.6 million passports to our citizens.”

“However, some 58 percent of them did not use their passports and go abroad,” he noted.

In emergency situations, the ministry is well prepared to supply passports in a day, he added.

Despite the global chip crisis, the minister reminded that some 77 million identification cards have been provided to Turkish citizens since 2018.

“Since January, we printed and gave some 6.7 million chipped IDs,” he said. “The country not only prints but also stores the chips and the cards.”