Turkey to print Hungary’s biometric passports!

Earlier, even Turkish passports were printed by a European company. However, the chip crisis hit that sector hard after the coronavirus epidemic, and the foreign firm could no longer tackle Ankara’s growing demand. Therefore, the Turkish government decided to make their own passports, and they even decided to print other countries’ travel documents. The Hungarian and the French governments have already ordered hundreds of thousands. Here are the details.

According to Hürriyet, Turkey started printing its biometric passports on 29 August. The country’s interior minister highlighted that they created a “fully Turkish” travel document. Süleyman Soylu said that the printing process is at the General Directorate of Civil Registration and Nationality, an affiliate of his ministry, in the capital Ankara.

Talking about their prototype, he highlighted the 27 security points of the new passport. Furthermore, he cleared that there were different chips inside, some small, some large. It seems other states also like the outlook and quality of the new Turkish biometric travel documents.

Soylu said they signed an agreement with Hungary to print 250,000 Hungarian passports in a year. Afterwards, Turkey will print French travel documents, he added.

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Regarding the number of Turkish passports they already produced, the minister stated that they made 1.6 million passports for Turkish citizens. “However, some 58 percent of them did not use their passports and go abroad,” he noted. Turkish interior ministry is well prepared to supply passports in a day in the case of an emergency, Soylu added.

He added that they provided 77 million identification cards to Turkish citizens as of 2018 despite the global chip crisis. “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”, the minister reportedly said.

According to hvg.hu, they sent many questions about the issue to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They promised to share the ministry’s replies as soon as they received them.

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Source: Hürriyet, hvg.hu