Visas.

My sister-in-law, Nuran, and her fiance have been trying to get a visa to come and visit us. It used to be a bit of a pain in the arse to obtain one a few years ago: Now it's become a bureaucratic brain haemhorrage. There is also the hint of a distinctly racist attitude from the FCO in the manner of how they've now got people applying.
Beforehand, you would get a visa form from the consulate, fill it in, gather all the necessary documents, then wait for about five hours in a queue in Tepebasi, either freezing your knackers off or sweating like a pig depending on the season, process slowly through a line of people, wait patiently behind some fat bloke boasting loudly about how important he is in the hope that it will speed his application, then have all the documents perused before being grudgingly given the visa.
Now, following the consulate bombing, individual applications are not considered. Instead, one must obtain a visa form (If there are any) from the doorman on the visa section. If there are none, one must go to the nearest approved agent to obtain one. This agent will also tell you which documents you need, most of which are actually pointless. One must then use the agent, who, for a fee (on top of the usual visa fee) will process the application for you. The agent will wait until they have a requisite number of applications, before sending the whole lot up to Ankara, where they will be perused. Some will be discarded, and initially approved documents returned to the visa section in Istanbul. The lucky applicants will then be informed, via postcard, to turn up for an interview, if of course they atre lucky enough to receive the postcard from the PTT in the first place. The lucky applicant will then queue at the visa section, again either freezing or boiling, wait patiently in line, have an interview with a member of consular staff, and can still have their visa application rejected. And this only takes THREE MONTHS.
It's bloody ridiculous. What is this? Are all Turks suddenly asylum seekers and/or terrorists all of a sudden? Turkey is hideously bureaucratic anyway, but this is just taking the piss. As Nuran said to Nur on the phone, 'Trying to get to see you is like trying to enter a prison.'
the British Embassy in Turkey