Germany seeks agreement with Taliban to take back convicted Afghan migrants

Germany wants to negotiate a direct agreement with the Taliban to take back Afghan nationals set for deportation, according to Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, reports Euronews.

"My idea is that we make agreements directly with Afghanistan to enable repatriations," said in an interview with the news magazine, Focus.

"We still need third parties to conduct talks with Afghanistan. This cannot remain a permanent solution."

In August last year, Germany resumed flying convicted Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan after suspending deportations after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Berlin said those flights were facilitated with the support of "key regional partners". But now, Germany wants to do this directly in cooperation with the Taliban in Kabul.

In the interview, Dobrindt said Berlin is also in contact with Damascus in a bid to reach an agreement on the deportation of Syrian migrants convicted of crimes in Germany.

Dobrindt represents the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Merz has pledged to deport people to Syria and Afghanistan, as well as stop refugee admission programs for former local staff of German agencies in the latter.

The admission programs were set up after the Taliban takeover was said to be a direct threat to their lives due to possible retaliation.

Migration was a key issue as Germans headed to the polls to vote in February's snap federal elections following the rise of the far right and several high-profile attacks by migrants.

Syrians and Afghans make up the two largest groups of asylum seekers in Germany, with 76,765 Syrians and 34,149 Afghans applying for asylum last year, according to official figures.

On Friday, the United Nations criticized plans to strike a deal with the Taliban to return migrants to Afghanistan.

Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office, told reporters in Geneva it was "not appropriate to return people to Afghanistan."

"We have been documenting continuing human rights violations in Afghanistan," she said, highlighting severe restrictions on women's rights and executions.

Arafat Jamal of the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) in Kabul said his organization still had a "non-return advisory" in place for Afghanistan.

"In other words ... the conditions on the ground are not yet ready for returns," he said. "We urge countries not to forcibly return to Afghanistan."

Germany does not recognize the Taliban government since its takeover in 2021 after NATO troops withdrew from the country and maintains no official diplomatic ties with Kabul.

On Friday, Russia became the first country in the world to formally recognize the Taliban government and establish full diplomatic links with Kabul.

Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi stated that he hoped the move would serve as an example to other countries, but it was criticized by opposition figures and human rights groups.

Countries reluctant to accept Afghan refugees

Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan has triggered tough measures from countries in the region and beyond to stem an expected refugee inflow. Governments from Islamabad to Ankara and Tehran have bolstered border restrictions in anticipation of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Kabul.

Those actions and similar curbs signaled by Western countries have highlighted an emerging tension between claims of international sympathy for Afghan refugees and the reality on the ground. Governments are worried that refugees could start to pour out and exacerbate political and social problems created by previous influxes.

Caught in the middle of this conundrum are Afghans who have escaped to Iran, in the hope of bringing their family over the border and possibly further afield.

Turkey is "facing an increasingly intensifying Afghan migration wave coming via Iran," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on the day the Taliban captured Kabul. The rapid seizure came two weeks before the complete withdrawal of US troops from the war-torn country they had been stationed in for nearly 20 years.

Turkey isn't the only nation in the neighborhood trying to avoid refugee inflows. Iran has closed its border with Afghanistan and returned refugees, according to a Tehran newspaper. Pakistan's army claims to have sealed all irregular crossings from Afghanistan, though domestic media have reported increased human trafficking across the border.

Unless Taliban decides to try to stop all Afghans from leaving, the end of the US involvement in Afghanistan is going to create more refugees from a country that already produced millions when it was occupied by the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Any new trickle or flood of refugees will include people who couldn't get on US or other evacuation flights from Kabul, people who fear for their lives, and others desperate because of economic hardships.

The UNHCR has predicted up to 500,000 Afghans could flee this year, leading him to call for borders to remain open and for more countries to share "this humanitarian responsibility" for helping refugees. Iran and Pakistan already host a combined 2.2 million registered Afghans. Iran needs help because of the "critical situation" it faces with the pandemic.

Pakistan, too, will likely end up more with refugees, despite rebuffing US requests to host more. Islamabad -- seen as close to the Taliban -- cites an inability to pay for the upkeep of more refugees on top of the millions.

According to a source in Pakistan's border authority, about 8,000 Afghans crossed into Pakistan on one day alone through Chaman crossing, where Afghans with a visa or a national identity card, or those previously registered with the Pakistani government as refugees, are allowed to cross.

Some countries in the region with interests in Afghanistan have offered limited, and short-term, help. The United Arab Emirates has agreed to temporarily host 5,000 evacuated nationals who will go to third countries, following a request from the US. The UAE, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have called for peace and political stability in Afghanistan.

Another country that's been involved in rebuilding Afghanistan over the past two decades is India, which hosts more than 15,000 Afghan refugees from long ago. As of March 2021, a total of 41,315 refugees and asylum-seekers were registered with the UNHCR India, with Afghans making up the second-largest subgroup, at 37%, behind those from Myanmar, at 54%.

New Delhi has said it would help Afghanistan's minority Hindu and Sikh community members to come to India, and stand by a number of other Afghans "who have been our partners in the promotion of our mutual developmental, educational and people-to-people endeavors," the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

There are concerns that the refugees' temporary stays could become quasi-permanent if other countries don't offer them a new home and they can't go back to Afghanistan.

While saying the European Union cannot abandon people in immediate danger in Afghanistan, Interior Ministers said in a statement last week that the 27-nations in the bloc "stand determined to act jointly to prevent the recurrence of uncontrolled large-scale illegal migration movements faced in the past, by preparing a coordinated and orderly response."