Also, A considered travelling to Italy in order to meet his younger sister who was later found to be residing in Italy; however, A does not possess a passport of any State, and only possesses a re-entry permit132 issued by the government of Japan. Because Italy does not allow issuance of a visa for travel using a re-entry permit, A is not able to travel to Italy and meet the sister. 4. Possible size of Category B (1) Cases of possible loss of nationality due to the division or collapse of States Case 3 is a case where nationality was lost due to a division or collapse of a State and is similar to Category J [State succession II] below. A became unable to renew the passport of his pre-independence nationality because he had been born within the territory of a newly independent State. Having no means to prove that he was a national of the newly independent State, he is an example of someone who lost his original nationality and is unable to acquire a new nationality due to changes in the form of the State. There is often some tension between the original State and the newly independent State, and various issues are likely to arise in relation to nationality which determines the membership of the nation. A may appear to maintain Ethiopian nationality according to its laws, but he is stateless because he is not considered as a national in the practice of the authorities. In addition to such cases where nationality is not recognized by the pre-independence State due to discriminatory application of its law, there are often cases of statelessness arising from the fact that certain groups of people are explicitly excluded from “citizens” under the law of the new State at the time of the division or collapse of a State. In particular, it is said that many stateless people were produced when the former Soviet Union collapsed. For example, in the newly born nation of Latvia, people of Russian descent who had migrated from today’s Russia to Latvia under the Soviet Union were unable to acquire Latvian nationality because they were excluded from Latvian citizenship. As a result, in Latvia there is a group of stateless people who do not have the nationality of any State and who have the legal status of “non-citizen”.133 When considering matters of nationality related to the division or collapse of a State, it is necessary to grasp the history of the relevant country and clarify its relations with other States. Below is a list of States which have become independent since around 1990; when there are issues of nationality for persons originating from these territories in particular, it 132 See Chapter 1, Section 1, Sub-section 2(5) of this report. Whereas UNHCR recognises non-citizens as stateless, the Government of Latvia has clarified its position that it does not regard them as stateless because the status of non-citizen is temporary. Also, although non-citizens were expected to acquire Latvian nationality by naturalization, not many have actually done so. This issue was raised in Mārtiņš Mits’ report entitled “Stateless People and Non-citizens in Latvia”, in an international symposium on “Stateless People and Non-Citizens: Dialogue with Latvia” held in Tokyo on 23 May 2015. 133 59