Reuters. Sports presenter Sinem Okten was surprised to see her visa application to Europe's Schengen area rejected twice, having visited often to cover matches and interview figures like Italian keeper Gianluigi Buffon and Liverpool's Juergen Klopp.
"I applied first to Germany then to France. Both rejected my application," she said. "I've travelled abroad numerous times to follow and film matches and interview people, maybe 50-60 times. This is the first time I am having this problem."
Turks applying for visas to the 26 Schengen countries are increasingly being rejected, data shows, and tours are being cancelled. Ankara said this week it was a deliberate effort to put President Tayyip Erdogan in a difficult position ahead of tight elections next year, a charge the European Union denies.
According to data from schengenvisainfo.com, 16.5% of applicants from Turkey last year were denied a visa, up from 12.5% a year earlier. Schengen rejections were only 4% in 2015 and started ramping up in 2017 for Turks, it shows.
The visa costs - amounting to some 100 euros, or a third of Turkey's minimum wage - are not refundable whether a visa is issued or not.
Documents given to Okten by the German embassy, viewed by Reuters, gave no reason for rejecting her application. A French document said its embassy did not see enough evidence that the TV presenter could finance her stay or return to Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the lengthy processing times and an increase observed in rejection rates is deliberate, adding he raised this in meetings with counterparts.
"Unfortunately, the U.S. and some EU and non-EU western countries give our citizens visa appointments one year, six, seven, eight months later. They also increased the rejection rate. This is planned and deliberate," he said on Tuesday.
Cavusoglu dismissed "excuses" related to coronavirus measures or personnel shortages, and said without providing evidence it was meant to give Erdogan a pre-election headache.
His ministry will warn ambassadors of some Western countries about the issue in September, he said. "If the situation does not improve after that we will take counter, restrictive measures."
Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, head of the EU delegation to Turkey, told Reuters the Schengen applications are treated on their merits and not on political grounds, adding relatively more incomplete and potentially fraudulent applications are seen from Turkey.
Twenty-three of Schengen's 26 covered states are EU members.
Turkey and the bloc enjoy good trade ties and decades of migration however relations are strained over issues including freedom of speech in Turkey and EU policies on refugees from Syria.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Schengen states received more than 900,000 visa applications from Turkey but that figure had dropped to around 270,000 in 2021.
All twenty-six countries in the Schengen area are exempt from visas, mostly for up to 90 days, when visiting Turkey. Citizens of some of them can cross Turkish borders with their ID cards, according to Turkey's foreign ministry website.
As more and more Turks are being rejected, tour operators have cancelled regular trips, Tur Andiamo chairman Cem Polatoglu said.
At a visa application centre in Istanbul, 57-year-old Hikmet Dogan said it was easier to get a visa in his previous trips to see his son in Sweden.
"I travelled two, three times but this time it is harder" Dogan said.
Beyond the Schengen area, the United States vowed on Wednesday to expand its visa processing capacity in Turkey after the foreign minister's public complaints.
