Turkey has revoked the tourist visa exemption for citizens of Tajikistan after two Tajik suspects in a deadly terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow last month were revealed to have travelled through İstanbul to Russia.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision to lift the visa exemption for holders of ordinary passports from Tajikistan traveling to Turkey was published in the Official Gazette on Saturday.
The decision comes shortly after the attack on the Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow on March 22, which left 145 people dead. Russian officials detained 11 suspects, including four Tajiki citizens.
Tajik nationals Rachabalizoda Saidakrami and Shamsidin Fariduni spent time in Turkey shortly before the attack and entered Russia together on the same flight from İstanbul, a Turkish security official told Agence France-Presse last month.
Turkish authorities established that Fariduni entered Turkey on February 20 and returned to Russia via İstanbul airport on March 2.
The suspect checked into a hotel in Istanbul’s conservative Fatih neighborhood on February 21 and checked out six days later.
The other suspect, Saidakrami, arrived in İstanbul on January 5. He checked into a hotel in Fatih the same day and checked out on January 21.
He then returned to Moscow on March 2 on the same flight as Fariduni.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group said they were responsible for the Moscow attack, following which Turkish authorities rounded up scores of suspects with alleged links to ISIL extremists in nationwide raids.
Turkey allows visa-free entrance to passport holders from 35 countries, including Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
