Director of the Office of the Minister of the Interior, Loizos Hadjivasiliou, told CNA on Monday that following a decision of the Republic of Cyprus all applications submitted from now on by Syrian immigrants will not be examined, thus exercising the right provided by the relevant European tools in cases of increased and extraordinary migration flows.
These persons, he said, will be able to submit their application and then they will be transferred to reception centers where they will be offered food and housing, without having the right to benefits. Anyone who chooses to leave the reception center will not receive benefits.
He noted that until the efforts are completed at EU level to designate specific areas of Syria as safe, the processing of asylum applications will be suspended.
Furthermore, he said that those persons, as is the case for all asylum seekers, will not have the right to work for the first nine months. He noted that the decision was taken as a result of increased migration flows from Leban
on and will apply to all new arrivals from the day the decision was made, which was yesterday, Sunday April 14, when 22 arrivals took place.
Replying to questions, he said that currently there are 10,000 applications, that were submitted in the past or recently, which are still pending and their examination will not continue.
Nicosia will send today a letter to the European Commission informing about its decision to activate the relevant directive and suspend the examination of applications within the timeframe provided, i.e. 21 months.
Source: Cyprus News Agency