KUWAIT: Scores of Syrian nationals were returned to where they came from as their passports were considered forged, while a Syrian embassy official said most of the passports are legitimate and hoped the interior and foreign ministries solve the problem.

A security source said "tens of Syrian nationals arrived at Kuwait International and Saad Al-Abdullah airports, the majority from UAE and Syria, had their passports checked at the airport criminal evidence office and results indicated that they were forged, so they were arrested and their passports confiscated".

The source said that the Syrians told security authorities that those passports were issued by their embassies in Kuwait and other Gulf countries and, they do not know anything about them being forged or not.

An official source at the Syrian embassy said charge-de-affairs Ghassan Anjareeni is following the issue, adding that most passports are authentic and issued by official authorities, but what happened is that a new barcode was approved at the airport and it considers old passports as forged. The source said the embassy is ready to deal with the issue and those affected who ask for a document proving the authenticity of their passports can get it, and passports can be replaced within one hour. - Al-Rai