Hello everyone,
Upon contacting the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus in Ottawa to inquire about visa requirement for the Holder of RTD issued by Canada, they told me that they require visa to enter Republic of Cyprus. However, I decided not to stop here so I sent an email to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cyprus to ask them the same question and the reply was as follows:
Dear sir,
· Holders of travel documents issued to recognised refugees under the Convention relating to the Status Refugees of 28 July 1951, do not require a visa to enter Cyprus, if their travel documents are issued by a member-state of Schengen or by a state listed in Annex II to the Council Regulation 539/2001 as per its amendments.
· Holders of travel documents issued to stateless persons under the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 28 September 1954, do not require a visa if the documents are issued by a member state of Schengen and the holders of these documents are residing in this Member State.
At first I did not know what does Annex II mean or what is Council Regulation 539/2001. But then after some research on the internet I came upon the Council Regulation 539/2001 which is a regulation signed by the Schengen member states in March 2001 that lists the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement. The link of this document is here:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32001R0539&from=EN
I found out Canada is actually one of the Annex II states, which as a result must exempt those who hold RTDs issued by Canada from visa when entering Cyprus and possibly other some other countries. At this stage, I am confused from receiving two contradicting answers. I am not sure if this document has any other valuable information for those who hold RTDs issued by Canada. I recommend you all to read it and share what you guys think.
Thanks
