As stipulated in the adopted Baku Declaration of the Extraordinary Video Summit of the Organization of Turkic States, the Parties have emphasized the importance of providing support and assistance to the citizens who remained in the territories of the Member States and could not cross the border due to the travel restrictions as a result of the pandemic, including on the visa facilitation without any sanction.

Based on this instruction, the Secretariat and State Migration Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan representing the Chairman-in-Office of the Organization of Turkic States have organized 1st Video-Conference Meeting among the Heads of the Migration Services and Related Authorities of the Member and Observer States of the Organization of Turkic States 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.

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 on 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. Taking into account the considerable number of citizens living in each other’s territories, the Parties agreed 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 as well as after pandemic.

The 1st Meeting of the Migration Coordination Group was held on 7 August 2020 in a video-conference format with the participation of the Heads of relevant Departments of the Migration Services of the Member States to discuss legalization of the activities of labor migrants from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the territories of the Member States of the Organization of Turkic States. The Parties also shared requirements of legislation on labor migration, as well as statistical data on citizens residing or currently staying in the territory of the Member or Observer States, including those who are unable to leave their destination countries due to the pandemic and agreed to create a single database in the framework of the Organization of Turkic States.