OREANDA-NEWS. Russians may get the opportunity to visit Turkey carrying only their internal passports - talks are already started by Ankara and Moscow, Turkish and Russian media report.

Moscow and Ankara have started discussing the possibility for Russians to visit Turkey without foreign passports, using only their internal (civil) passports. On March 25, Monday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu expressed the readiness of the government to consider this possibility.

"We have started negotiations on the possibility for Russian citizens to come to our country with their internal identity documents, without foreign passports," Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, according to Turkish newspaper “Milliyet”.

The Turkish Foreign Minister added that on April 8, the government of the Republic headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will travel to Russia to launch the Cross Year of Culture and Tourism between the two countries. Turkish politicians will also take part in the meeting of the Cooperation Council held on highest level. Before that, on March 28, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is going to visit Antalya.

In 1990-2000-ies for Russian citizens traveling to Turkey there has been a simplified procedure for entry into the country - Russian tourists could get their entry visa on arrival to the border. In May 2010, during the visit of Dmitry Medvedev (who was then President of Russia) to Ankara, an agreement was signed on the terms of mutual trips of Russian and Turkish citizens. According to the agreement, Russians could enter Turkey for up to 30 days without a visa. In May 2013, Turkey extended the term of stay for the Russian citizens on its territory up to 60 days, and in April 2017 it was extended up to 90 days.