2024-09-28 18:00:38
The federal government wants to deport hundreds of people to Turkey every week. However, the country’s Foreign Ministry does not want to know anything about such agreements.
According to a media report, the federal government has begun deporting hundreds of people to Turkey. As the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” reported on Friday, a total of 200 affected people were initially to be brought to Turkey on several scheduled flights. Citing government sources, the report said Ankara had offered to take back up to 500 citizens per week.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry, however, denied an agreement on deportations to Turkey. The reports “about the repatriation of our citizens who do not have a legal right of residence in Germany” are “not true,” a ministry spokesman explained on the online service X: “No practice of mass deportation of our citizens has been approved.” During the meeting between Turkish President Erdogan and Chancellor Scholz in New York on Monday, this “topic was not on the agenda”.
This was preceded by months of negotiations between the governments in Berlin and Ankara, reported the “FAZ”. The deportations have been under negotiation since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Berlin last November. In return, Germany apparently agreed to speed up existing visa procedures.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior did not confirm the information upon request. However, Department Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) commented on deportations to Turkey. “We have now achieved that returns to Turkey can be carried out more quickly and effectively and that Turkey can take back citizens who are not allowed to stay in Germany more quickly,” she told the newspapers of the Funke media group. This is “a great step forward and a further building block in limiting irregular migration”.
However, the minister did not give any details. She pointed out that the number of Turkish asylum seekers is high. However, there is not even a reason for protection in Germany in every tenth case.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees had decided on 28,492 asylum applications from Turkish citizens this year by the end of August – this is the third highest number after Syria and Afghanistan. The protection rate was 9.6 percent.
According to the Funke newspapers, the number of Turkish nationals in Germany who are required to leave the country is currently 15,561, according to the Interior Ministry.
According to the federal government, a total of 441 people were deported from Germany to Turkey in the first half of 2024. This made Turkey the seventh most frequently destination country for deportations.