Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan's legislation on citizenship has no major shortfalls but the Law on Citizenship should be improved, a local group providing legal counsel to expatriates has said.
Director of the Center for Legal Assistance to Migrants, Alovsat Aliyev, said that at times foreign citizens face hardship with naturalization.
"This causes violations of their rights and their departure from the country. Sometimes this results in the reduction of foreign investment, as businessmen unable to receive Azerbaijani citizenship prefer not to live here."
Aliyev said 350 foreigners apply to the Interior Ministry for naturalization every year, with most of them being the nationals of neighboring Iran, Georgia and Turkey.
Granting citizenship to foreign citizens is a prerogative of the Azerbaijani President. A special commission on related issues is operating under the President's Office. The body meets annually and grants citizenship to applicants if their documents are in full compliance with the law.
The requirements include stay in the country for at least five years and fluency in the Azerbaijani language confirmed in writing by the Education Ministry.
The applications of 66 foreigners were reviewed by the government and 17 of them were naturalized in 2007. Those whose applications were denied reserve the right to re-apply this year.
"The minor problem here is that no concrete reason is specified for the denials, which increases the possibility that a foreign national will face the same problem the following year," Aliyev said, adding that this required some improvements in relevant legislation.