Turkey’s efforts to boost local production instead of relying on imports have extended to the production of passports. A day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the "local and national" passport made entirely in Turkey, the Interior Ministry introduced the new official form of identification to the press, along with a new design for driving licenses.
Although printing passports is an easy task, installing chips for next-generation "e-passports" became more difficult at a time of international logistical obstacles and a shortage of chips, due to a number of factors, particularly the coronavirus pandemic which hindered international supply chains.
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu told reporters on Tuesday that they are closer to reaching serial production of e-passports and recently wrapped up the pilot production phase. He was speaking at a press conference in the capital Ankara where he showed a sample passport, driving license and "Blue Card," a type of ID given to former Turkish citizens.
The minister said Turkey, like several other countries, sourced its next-generation biometric passports from a European firm since 2018 and that firm now has problems acquiring chips due to the global shortage. "Many other countries reverted to production of old passports. We, on the other hand, with the efforts of our Civic Registry Directorate and the Mint (of Ministry of Treasury and Finance) succeeded in trial production of biometric passports. By God’s will, we will start mass production in August," he said. The minister said the locally made passports will have "newer technology," giving them more security features. "It contains a contactless chip running on AKIS (an operating system developed by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey)," the minister stressed.
The new passport also has new visual features, most significantly, "Turkey" has been replaced with "Türkiye," a decision already implemented in several public agencies. The pages will also contain symbols and images depicting well-known landmarks and features of Turkish cities. In the middle pages of the passport, a picture of the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul is engraved. Soylu also announced that the expiration date of "green passports" granted to civil servants has been increased to 10 years from five years.
As for driving licenses, the minister said the new biometric driving licenses will have two photos of the owner instead of one. He said the "Blue Card," a simple piece of paper given to former citizens, would be converted into a biometric card with a contactless chip like passports. The Blue Card is exclusive to people who are Turkish citizens by birth and renounce their citizenship (subject to the approval of the Interior Ministry) to acquire the citizenship of another country that does not approve dual citizenship.
New passports will only be given to those seeking to change their existing passports and those whose passports expired or will expire from August onward.
Soylu also said that Turkey is in negotiations with Hungary on printing passports. "We are discussing the possibility of backup for passports. If we can reach a deal, Hungary will be able to print its passports in Turkey if the need arises and they will print our passports if we face problems here," he said.