“As an ambassador, I told our employees that Azerbaijanis are our friends. We are friendly people, and I instructed them to be as careful and gentle as possible with regard to visas, and visa opportunities should be convenient for them," the Italian ambassador to Azerbaijan, Claudio Taffuri, told Report.
The diplomat noted that the process became easier after the opening of the Visa Center for the Italian Embassy in November.
“To date, the Italian embassy has received too many applications for Schengen visas. Due to the large number of requests, it was not possible to physically respond to all of them. That is why, at the beginning of November, a new Visa Center serving the Italian Embassy was opened,” he said.
According to him, the center receives a hundred applications daily, and it is possible to view all of them. The diplomat said that detailed information on ways to contact the Visa Center was provided on the embassy’s website.
At the same time, the ambassador denied claims that the Italian diplomatic mission refused to issue a Schengen visa for first-time applicants: “We do not accept such claims. There are certain rules that we, as a country, must follow. As the name suggests, the Schengen visa is not only a type of document belonging to our country but also belongs to the Schengen zone as a whole. Applying for a Schengen visa for the first time is not a problem for us.”
He emphasized that each embassy has a list of documents that must be submitted: “If someone's documents are missing, the system won’t accept the application, and if that’s the case, it’s normal for the person to get a rejection.”
As for the number of Azerbaijanis applying for visas, Taffuri said that the calculation of applications is carried out by the Consulate or the Visa Center: “However, I can say for sure that most of the visa applicants get their visas. If applying for a Schengen visa, it does not matter which country’s consular service issues the visa. So, after the system receives the documents, each of the Schengen countries must respond positively to this request. In other words, issuing this visa is not only within the jurisdiction of the Italian Consulate. Even some people objected to me personally over my rejection. During the investigation, we found that the documents were missing.”