The Finnish Immigration Service will travel to Istanbul, Turkey, to conduct interviews in May and June 2012. The interviews will take place in Turkey because the Finnish embassy in Damascus is temporarily closed due to Syrian unrest.
Interviewing applicants who have applied by the end of March
During the trip will be interviewed those Iraqi citizens whose residence permit applications have arrived at the Finnish Immigration Service by 31 March 2012. Any applications received after March 2012 will be processed in the order in which they were received and any necessary interviews will be arranged later.
An interview is held if there are no other means of establishing sufficient grounds for granting a residence permit.
Invitations will be mailed to the interviewees
Sponsors or applicants will not have to contact the Finnish Immigration Service about the interview.
If an applicant must be interviewed in order to issue a decision on his/her application, an invitation to the interview will be mailed to the applicant's sponsor living in Finland.
If the sponsor does not receive an invitation, an interview is not required. That means that the family member's application for a resident permit and any further written information requested by the Finnish Immigration Service will be sufficient to issue a decision.
