HCMC – Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security has said it is considering adding the Place of Birth (POB) field to newly designed blue-violet passports after three European Union countries have declined to recognize these passports.
Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic have announced to suspend issuing visas to those Vietnamese holding the new version of Vietnamese passport due to the absence of the POB field on the personal identification page.
Speaking at a monthly news conference of the Government in Hanoi on August 3, the office chief and spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Security, Lieutenant General To An Xo, said the 2019 Law on Exit and Entry of Vietnamese Citizens does not require the Vietnamese passport to have the POB field on the personal identification page.
Asked what the ministry would do to cope with the non-recognition of the new version of Vietnamese passport by the three EU nations, Xo said the passports that have been issued to Vietnamese since July 1 this year meet what is required by the Law on Exit and Entry of Vietnamese Citizens.
They also meet the requirements set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), he said, adding that the passports issued by other countries like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, do not contain the POB field.
However, he said, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were working with the authorities of Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic to resolve the issue.
A temporary solution is to add the POB of the passport holder on an Observations page, if necessary, he said.
To deal with the issue once and for all, “the Ministry of Public Security will be working with other relevant ministries and agencies to review the relevant laws and regulations so that the POB field can be added to the personal identification page of the new passport,” Xo stressed.
