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Starting next month, the Turkish embassy in Qatar will no longer process visit visas, officials have announced.
Instead, from Nov. 1 residents can approach VFS Global at Jaidah Square or Kingston Travel & Tourism and Services in Al Gharafa with their applications.
The move comes amid a huge influx of applications, according to Turkish Ambassador to Qatar Ahmet Demirok.
Speaking to local media last week, he said the change should help speed up the process.
This should be good news for many travelers from Qatar, as visa on arrival to Turkey is only available to citizens of select nations, including from some European countries and the US.
Since May, Qataris can also now travel to Turkey under a reciprocal visa-free travel agreement.
More demand
In the past three months alone, the embassy has received more than 5,000 requests for visitor visas, the ambassador told the Peninsula.
And more than 10,500 visa applications were received by the embassy last year.
The newspaper reports:
“In January, the embassy launched an online visa appointment system but due to the limited capacity of the embassy it still takes time, sometimes a month or two during summer which is the peak season,” Demirok said.
Turkey is not the only to contract VFS Global to help with its visas.
The firm also manages the visa application of countries such as Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, New Zealand, the UK and some countries with the Schengen Visa, including Spain and Switzerland.
Thoughts?
(The post Turkish embassy in Doha to outsource visit visas from Nov. 1 is from Doha News.)