CIS

Home page

CIS

Russia may prolong visa-free stay for tourists beyond 72 hrs - Kremlin aide

23 October 2014 22:14 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Russia does not rule out it may prolong a visa-free stay for tourists in the future beyond the 72 hours allowed at present, Sergei Ivanov, the chief of the Presidential Administration staff told reporters on Thursday, APA reports quoting ITAR-TASS.

He recalled that talks between the EU and Russia on visa-free traveling had been frozen and “this wasn’t our fault.”

“We have a regulation permitting travelers to visit certain places in the Russian Federation without visas and to stay there for 72 hours,” Ivanov said

speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a session of the Valdai international discussion club. “It applies, for instance, to St Petersburg and Sochi where you can get off the cruise ships and stay on the shore for 72 hours and I don’t rule out a possibility of prolongation of the stay in the future”

He indicated along with it that Russia would like to take all such steps on the basis of reciprocity.

Moscow is not going “to respond with punches to punches or to descend to making personal remarks or to exchange insults,” Ivanov said.

“Millions of people continue traveling across the border, in the meantime,” he said. “We’d like to do everything that’s featured in international law,” he said. “Unfortunately, international law translates into practice in recent years and the fact is highly deplorable.