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BERLIN: Germany may be close to finalizing a deal with the Taliban government in Afghanistan for more regular deportation flights, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in an interview published on Saturday.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in power since May, has promised to speed up expulsions of Afghan asylum seekers who have been found guilty of crimes in Germany.
But the returns are controversial because Berlin does not recognize the Taliban administration in Kabul.
Dobrindt told the online news site The Pioneer that discussions about more frequent flights were at a “very advanced” stage.
“So, we can assume that we will have an agreement very soon. We want to carry out regular deportations and that does not only mean using charter flights but also by commercial flights,” he added.
Germany has made two deportation flights of convicted Afghans since 2021: 81 were returned in July this year and 28 last year.
The charter flights were organized by Qatar in a mediating role.
Germany’s interior ministry announced last month that direct discussions were taking place with the Taliban authorities.
Ministry staff last weekend held “technical discussions” with officials in Kabul to organize deportation flights, Dobrindt said.
The conservative minister said he “will do everything to make it work,” including going to the Afghan capital, adding that he wanted to “try the same thing with Syria.”
Like a number of European countries, Germany announced a freeze on asylum applications of Syrian nationals after the fall of president Bashar Assad.
Merz is banking on a tougher immigration policy to combat the rise of the far right in Germany, which is neck-and-neck with the conservatives in recent opinion polls.
 

VICTORIA: The people of Seychelles voted on Saturday in a runoff between President Wavel Ramkalawan and opposition challenger Patrick Herminie, whose party seeks to return to power after ruling the country for 4 decades.
There was no outright winner in elections held two weeks ago, with Herminie receiving 48.8 percent of the vote and Ramkalawan getting 46.4 percent, according to official results. 
A candidate must win more than 50 percent of the vote to be declared the winner.
Early voting started on Thursday, but most Seychellois were voting on Saturday. 

Polling stations opened shortly after 7 a.m. local time, and results are expected on Sunday.
The contest between Herminie and Ramkalawan is widely seen as a tight race. 
Both candidates have run spirited campaigns as they try to address key issues for voters, including environmental damage and a crisis of drug addiction in a country long seen as a tourist haven.
Herminie represents the United Seychelles party, which dominated the country’s politics for decades before losing power five years ago. It was the governing party from 1977 to 2020.
Ramkalawan, of the governing Linyon Demokratik Seselwa party, is seeking a second term.
The 115-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean has become synonymous with luxury and environmental travel, which has bumped Seychelles to the top of the list of Africa’s richest countries by gross domestic product per capita, according to the World Bank.
But opposition to the governing party has been growing.
A week before the first round of voting, activists filed a lawsuit against the government challenging a recent decision to issue a long-term lease for a 400,000-square-meter area on Assomption Island, the country’s largest, to a foreign company to develop a luxury hotel.
The lease, which includes the reconstruction of an airstrip to facilitate access for international flights, has ignited widespread criticism that it favors foreign interests over Seychelles’ welfare and sovereignty.
An island nation, Seychelles is especially vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels, according to the World Bank and the UN Sustainable Development Group.
It also faces an addiction crisis fueled by heroin. A 2017 UN report described the country as a major drug transit route, and the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index said that the island nation has one of the world’s highest rates of heroin addiction.