Baku, Azerbaijan, August 16
By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend:
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have made significant progress in negotiations to create a Central Asian counterpart to Schengen - Silk Visa, Trend reports via Uzbek media.
Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Aziz Abdukhakimov stated that at the beginning of the negotiations there were certain contradictions. Kazakhstan offered a new visa, and Uzbekistan - a unified system for issuing electronic visas.
“We have already made significant progress on this issue. Now we are working more on technical details. This is due to the work of law enforcement agencies, security services and creation of convenient logistics between countries. There is a whole range of work there,” the deputy prime minister explained during a press conference in Tashkent.
On December 28, 2018, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan reached an agreement on the introduction of the “Asian Schengen” - the Silk Visa. The agreement assumes that any foreigner who legally entered Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan can safely move through the territory of two countries without receiving a visa for each of the states separately.
It was expected that the Central Asian counterpart of Schengen will begin to work in February 2019. But, due to disagreements between the states on this issue, it was never launched. The date of its introduction has not yet been announced.
Note that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan expressed their willingness to join the Silk Visa project too. Later, Azerbaijan and Turkey may also enter the single-visa area.
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