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An UNMIK Travel Document was a passport-sized travel document issued to residents of Kosovo, who were not able to obtain a passport from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, for the purpose of foreign travel.[1] The document was issued by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) from 2000[1] to 2008.[2]
| UNMIK Travel Document | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Travel document |
| Issued by |  UNMIK |
| First issued | 2000 |
| Purpose | Travel abroad |
| Valid in | 40 countries |
| Eligibility | Kosovo residency |
| Expiration | 2 years after acquisition for adults |
History
editThe UNMIK Travel Document was introduced in 2000. After the government of Kosovo started to issue their own passports, UNMIK ceased issuing them. Existing documents retained their validity until expiry with the last ones expiring in 2010.
The document was the only other travel document issued by the United Nations besides the United Nations laissez-passer, which is mainly issued to employees of the UN and its specialised agencies.
Travel document
editThe travel document was not a passport as it did not contain information on nationality and as it was not issued by a sovereign state. The document carried UNMIK travel document/titre de voyage on the cover, contained 32 pages and was valid for two years. The document contained a machine readable strip. As the issuing authority was the UNMIK, the document had the official[3] three-letter code "UNK" where normally the country code is placed.
Acceptance
editAs the status of Kosovo was and remains controversial, the document was not widely accepted.[4] For those countries that did accept it, its non-passport status sometimes restricted its applications. For example, although the United States did accept the UNMIK Travel Document, it did not place visa stickers in the document itself, but on a detached sheet.[5]
In 2004, the UNMIK travel document was accepted by: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uzbekistan.[6]
References
edit- ^ a b "Complete UN Kosovo Coverage". Archived from the original on 2012-10-25. Retrieved 2017-06-29.
- ^ "First passports issued in Kosovo (SETimes.com)". Archived from the original on 2011-06-15. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
- ^ "THREE-LETTER CODES" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-08-12. Retrieved 2010-04-27.
- ^ "UNMIK - Travel Documents". Archived from the original on 2009-08-05. Retrieved 2018-05-09.
- ^ "Visa Bulletin for July 2013". Archived from the original on 2013-06-09. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
- ^ "Responses to Information Requests". 5 June 2018.