Minsk simplifies residence permit process for westerners with Belarusian ancestry

August 23, BPN. Minsk has simplified the procedure for granting permanent residence permits to neighboring Western states’ nationals with Belarusian ancestry, said the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ top migration official, Alaksiej Biahun.

“In order to promote the interests of our state, the relevant authorities of the Republic of Belarus are consistently implementing steps aimed at establishing good-neighborly relations with the nationals of Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Estonia who arrive in our country,” Biahun said. “The first step was to establish a visa-free regime [for] representatives of these countries, which has already been used by over 200,000 foreign nationals.”

The Belarusian authorities have introduced a visa waiver for residents of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, but not Estonia. Estonians are excluded from the statistics regularly published by the State Border Committee.

“The Ministry of Internal Affairs’ next step, agreed with interested state agencies, is to establish a simplified procedure for giving permanent residence permits to those citizens of states bordering the Republic of Belarus who have ethnic roots in Belarus,” the police official said. The simplified procedure provides for a reduction in the petitions processing time, and for a change in the review process, he added.

On August 22, the State Border Committee said 200,378 residents of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have visited Belarus since the visa waiver was introduced.

During a trip to the Miadziel district, Minsk region, on August 2, Alaksandr Łukašenka said Belarus would grant citizenship to Lithuanians, Latvians and Poles under an accelerated procedure.

These countries’ authorities urged their compatriots not to visit Belarus, citing security concerns.