MOSCOW, November 2. /TASS/. Russia’s embassy in Cyprus will request the republic’s competent agencies to provide official information on the detentions of Russian nationals, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
The diplomat made this statement in reply to a question from journalists about the violation of the rights of Russian female national I. Shirobokova in Cyprus.
"The Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Cyprus has been instructed to request the competent bodies of that country to provide official information on the non-admission and the detention of Russian citizens at airports," the diplomat said.
"We deem it absolutely inadmissible the rude and unceremonious treatment of law-abiding Russian citizens arriving for the purposes of tourism or for any other legal reason in the territory of Cyprus with all the duly executed documents," the spokeswoman stressed.
As the diplomat said, the Russian embassy in Cyprus has registered a growing number of complaints by Russians in the past few months over the tighter requirements for documents that have to be submitted at Cypriot check points while "neither the Embassy nor the Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry has received any complaints from the above-mentioned female citizen, and also from citizens (presumably Russian, judging from her words) who stayed with her in the detention cell.
"The actions by the personnel of the Cypriot border guard service towards I. Shirobokova may be qualified in a judicial manner and may be appealed against by the affected person in a court of law of the Republic of Cyprus upon the presence of the corresponding evidential base," the Russian diplomat stressed.
The Russian side has taken some measures to prevent discriminatory actions against Russian citizens, Zakharova said.
"We urged the leadership of the Republic of Cyprus to officially publish migration requirements on the websites of its consular missions in Russia," the diplomat said.
"In order to inform about the current situation, the mobile apps ‘Foreign Assistant’ and the website of the Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry publish additional recommendations in the regional section ‘Cyprus’ for Russian citizens planning trips to Cyprus, with a warning notice of possible complexities upon entry into that country," the spokeswoman said.
It earlier emerged that the Cypriot authorities had retightened control over visits to the peninsula’s northern part. According to media reports, foreign nationals who indicate at the border that the aim of their trip is to visit the territory of the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus may be detained and deported.
On November 1, Russia’s Foreign Ministry handed over a note to Ambassador of Cyprus to Moscow Leonidas Markides over the violation of the rights of Russian nationals upon crossing the Cypriot border.