Germany and Austria wrestle with deportation to Syria and Afghanistan

Germany is seeking direct talks with the Taliban to facilitate the deportation of convicted Afghan criminals to their home country, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told Germany's Focus news magazine in remarks published on Thursday.

Dobrindt said he was also seeking to facilitate deportations to Syria.

The Austrian Interior Ministry said it had for the first time in 15 years deported a Syrian migrant back to his home country, flying him to Damascus via Istanbul on a commercial flight on Thursday.

Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner and his German counterpart at the time, Nancy Faeser, visited Damascus together in April. Their focus was on deporting serious criminals and potential Islamist threats.

Dobrindt told Focus: "There are contacts with Syria on an agreement to return Syrian criminals. There are no results as yet."

Germany and other European countries suspended decisions on asylum seekers from Syria during the chaos following the toppling of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December. Consideration of Syrian asylum seekers' application was restarted in May.

According to the German authorities, 51,736 applications from Syrian nationals were pending on May 31. A civil court sitting in Karlsruhe ruled in May that the situation in Syria was no longer such that asylum decisions could be postponed.

Afghans whose applications for protection are rejected are currently allowed to remain in Germany. There have been no deportations since the Taliban movement retook the country in 2021, with the exception of 28 criminals flown to Kabul in August with the assistance of Qatar.

"As before, a mediator is needed to conduct talks with Afghanistan, but this cannot be a permanent solution," Dobrindt told Focus. He called for direct contact with the Taliban in Afghanistan to facilitate deportations.

Dobrindt is calling for the number of refugees accepted by Germany to be well below 200,000. Over the past two years the figure has been some 600,000 registered asylum seekers. This does not include the 1.2 million Ukrainians taken in by Germany, who do not need to apply for asylum.

Almost 230,000 people made an initial application for asylum in Germany last year. The official figure for the first five months of this year is 54,000.