Germany to seek direct contact with Taliban on deportations

BERLIN (AFP): Germany’s interior minster on Thursday said he wanted direct contact with the Taliban authorities in a bid to enable criminals to be deported back to Afghanistan.

“I envision us making agreements directly with Afghanistan to enable deportations,” Alexander Dobrindt said in an interview with Focus magazine.

Berlin currently has only indirect contact with the Taliban through third parties, an arrangement Dobrindt said “cannot remain a permanent solution.”

Germany stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has flared as migration becomes a key issue amid the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Twenty-eight Afghan nationals who had been convicted of crimes were deported in August last year after Germany’s previous government carried out indirect negotiations with the Taliban.

No further deportations have taken place. But the debate has continued to rage, especially since a series of deadly attacks last year blamed on asylum seekers — with several of the suspects from Afghanistan.

Germany’s new government, a coalition between the conservative CDU/CSU and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), has promised to expel more foreign criminals alongside a crackdown on irregular migration.

Dobrindt also said he was in contact with authorities to enable deportations to Syria, which have been suspended since 2012.

Longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad was toppled in December. The country is now under the control of Islamist leaders, some of whom were once linked with the Al-Qaeda jihadist network.

Germany has made tentative contact with the new authorities and has sent several delegations to Damascus for talks.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week said he believed “deportations to Syria are possible today, given the current circumstances and situation.”

Austria on Thursday deported a Syrian convict back to Syria, becoming the first EU country to do so officially in recent years.