A Turkish Kurd who is married to an Irish woman has claimed his attempts to apply for residency in Ireland have been thwarted by his native embassy in Dublin.
Mr Erdogan Birer, a father of two from Waterford, said he is deeply frustrated by his unsuccessful efforts for more than three years to secure a passport or identity card from the Turkish authorities which he needs before his residency application can be processed.
However, Mr Birer's claim that embassy staff in Dublin have been "messing" with him have been denied by its first secretary, Mr Ercan Ozten. Mr Ozten said the embassy has no record that Mr Birer made his initial application for a passport or identity card in February 2000.
He said Mr Birer made his application last summer and he is currently helping him to establish his identity through the authorities in Turkey, which is necessary before a passport or identity card can be issued.
Mr Birer married his Irish wife, Nicola, in May 2000 and wants to apply for residency on this basis. He arrived in Ireland in 1998, claiming he was fleeing persecution for his political activities as a Kurd.
Mr Birer is from the city of Diyarbakir, in the overwhelmingly Kurdish part of south eastern Turkey. Relations between the Turkish authorities and Kurd separatists have calmed down since 1999 when the Kurdistan Workers' Party conducted guerilla attacks following the capture and imprisonment of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Mr Birer said his efforts to have his identity verified have been consistently frustrated by the embassy which has questioned documents and "had us running around chasing our tails. Every day I go to embassy I come back, they mess with me, say change this, change this."
Mrs Birer said her husband has been left in limbo. "We have a fear that he can be deported at any time . . . It's like discrimination here. He left Turkey because of discrimination and he's still being discriminated against here."
However, Mr Ozten rejected this charge and said passports could not be issued to people who claim to be Turkish citizens but who are not able to prove their identity. Mr Birer had not yet proven his identity, he said.
Mr Ozten said he recently became involved in assisting Mr Birer to secure the necessary documents from police in Istanbul, where Mr Birer's brother lives. The authorities have not yet replied to this request for assistance. He said he did not realise that Mr Birer had previously made an asylum claim in Ireland.
He has told him the embassy could issue a temporary travel document to allow him to return to Turkey to speed up the process.
However, Mr Birer said due to his past political activity he would not be willing to return.