applications fail to contain all the documents required, an official of the Interior Ministry, or the diplomatic representation, must explain the procedures for applying for citizenship.169 All five States refuse to grant nationality to certain categories of applicants. These may include persons who have committed crimes against humanity or genocide; persons who have undermined State independence and sovereignty; persons who have sought to change the State’s constitutional foundation through violent means; those who have committed acts threatening national security (including its interethnic harmony); members of political parties and organizations that are incompatible with the constitutional principles of the State, and persons with outstanding criminal sentences.170 Tajikistan and Kazakhstan also explicitly refuse petitions from persons who are citizens of another State.171 All States apart from Kyrgyzstan require applicants first to renounce their other citizenship, which leads to at least temporary statelessness. 2.7.2 Other means of acquiring nationality Other means of acquiring nationality operate in individual states. All five Central Asian States legislate for the reacquisition of nationality by former nationals.172 In all five States, this restoration process is similar to naturalization in that it requires a formal application, and approval by the President. In Kyrgyzstan it also involves one year’s residence, before the application can be submitted.173 In Tajikistan, applicants must produce a notarised birth certificate from Tajikistan and prove they were permanently resident on Tajik territory immediately before they left the USSR.174 The other States appear to have no residence requirements. In all States, the right to reacquire nationality extends to children on State territory who lost their citizenship through adoption, or a change in the nationality of its parents. In Tajikistan, persons married to Tajik citizens and persons born to Tajik citizens who have acquired a foreign citizenship at birth can acquire nationality by a process of registration.175 The registration is carried out at the department of internal affairs closest to the applicant, and does not involve the President. Until 2008, it was also open to former USSR citizens, stateless persons and former Tajik citizens and descendants of such citizens. Remarkably, the provisions relating to stateless persons and former USSR citizens extended to all such persons who resided in any of the USSR successor States and who applied for Tajik citizenship within one or three years from the entry into force of the law, respectively. 169 Article 16, 2007 Regulation No 473 ‘On the Procedure for Considering Issues related to the Citizenship of the Kyrgyz Republic’. 170 Article 24, 1995 Citizenship Law of Tajikistan; Article 18 (Part 2), 1992 Citizenship Law of Turkmenistan; Article 17, 1991 Citizenship Law of Kazakhstan; Article 16, 2007 Citizenship Law of Kyrgyzstan; Article 17(3), Citizenship Law of Uzbekistan. 171 Kazakhstan excludes from this category the people earmarked for simplified procedures under Article 16(1) of the 1991 Citizenship Law – such as indigenous (korennye) Kazakhs repatriating to Kazakhstan by official invitation. Tajikistan excludes persons who are citizens of States with whom it has a bilateral agreement on dual nationality under Article 24(d), 1995 Citizenship Law of Tajikistan. 172 Article 20, 1992 Citizenship Law of Turkmenistan; Article 16, 1995 Citizenship Law of Tajikistan; Article 18, 1991 Citizenship Law of Kazakhstan; Articles 14(1)(3) and Article 15, 2007 Citizenship Law of Kyrgyzstan; Article 18, 1992 Citizenship Law of Uzbekistan. 173 Articles 14 and 15, 2007 Citizenship Law of Kyrgyzstan. 174 Article 17, 1996 Regulation No 611 ‘On the Procedure for Considering Issues related to the Citizenship of the Republic of Tajikistan’. 175 Article 21, 1995 Citizenship Law of Tajikistan. In the case of persons born to at least one parent who is a Tajik citizen, they must have acquired a foreign citizenship by birth and the application for Tajik citizenship must be submitted during the five years before reaching 18 years old. ~ 26 ~