Norwegians to visit Turkey with an ID, no passport

ISTANBUL

The citizens of Norway, the non-EU Nordic country, will be able to travel to Turkey by only showing their national ID, with no need for passports, once the bureaucratic procedures are completed, the daily Milliyet has reported.

The mastermind of the project is Turkey’s Oslo ambassador, Fazlı Çorman, who recently presented a “no-passport formula” to the Turkish Foreign Ministry in the capital Ankara.

According to the plan, Norwegians will be able to visit Turkey with their chipped IDs like they do when traveling to the Schengen countries.

Between 120,000 and 150,000 out of the total 5.3 million Norwegians vacation in Turkey annually.

The reason behind the “no-passport formula” is that obtaining a passport in Norway is a hard bureaucratic process. It takes around six months to issue a Norwegian passport, even for children.

“We have daily calls from the Norwegians to our embassy to find a solution to this issue,” Çorman told the daily on June 2.

Most Norwegians, either have no passport or the expiry dates of their passports have passed.

According to the daily, Ankara “leans towards welcoming Norwegians with IDs,” but will ask Oslo to show examples of the “travel with no passport.”

“Next week, we will make an official application to the Norwegian authorities,” Çorman added.

There are around 24,000 Turks living in Norway, according to the latest statistics issued in 2018.