Lithuania opens Baku visa and permit applications to three countries

Citizens and permanent residents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan will be able to apply for Lithuanian national visas and temporary residence permits in Baku from November 1, LRT reported, citing the Foreign Ministry.

Applications can be submitted through the external service provider VFS Global by people planning to study in Lithuania or stay for other long-term purposes. The change does not apply to applications for short-stay Schengen visas.

The ministry said the move is intended to streamline application processing and make migration procedures more efficient. From November, migration service centres in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina are due to close. Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas said the decision was made in response to a terrorism threat flagged by the State Security Department and tensions in Lithuanian society over the growth of the Central Asian community.

In a separate move, the Interior Ministry said Belarusian citizens would be able to apply for Lithuanian temporary residence permits in Armenia and Georgia from November. It cited employers’ need to bring in workers after amendments to the Law on the Legal Status of Foreigners take effect.

Applicants in Azerbaijan, India, Cambodia, Ghana and Mongolia currently cannot apply for Lithuanian residence permits on the basis of employment. Such applications are possible in 22 of the 27 countries where external service providers will continue operating from next month.

As of September 1, nearly 227,000 foreign nationals held valid residence permits in Lithuania, according to the Migration Department. They included 80,000 Ukrainians, nearly 48,000 Belarusians, 13,000 Russians, about 13,000 citizens of Uzbekistan, 9,400 Indians and 7,400 Tajiks.