Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is seeking direct talks with the hard-line Islamist Taliban regime in Afghanistan to facilitate the deportation of Afghan criminals from Germany, according to a story in Focus magazine.

“We still need third parties to conduct talks with Afghanistan. This cannot remain a permanent solution,” the conservative politician from Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) party told Focus.

“I envision us reaching direct agreements with Afghanistan to enable deportations.”

Since the Taliban took power in 2021, there have been no deportations from Germany to Afghanistan, with one exception. Last August, 28 criminals were flown to Kabul with the help of Qatar.

Dobrindt also highlighted ongoing challenges with deportations to Syria. To enable deportations there, Dobrindt’s predecessor, Nancy Faeser, had initiated contact before leaving office with the new interim government, which has largely emerged from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which had overthrown ruler Bashar al-Assad.

“There are contacts with Syria regarding an agreement to deport Syrian criminals. However, the results are not yet available,” Dobrindt said.

Annual refugee cap of 200,000 ‘far too high’

In Dobrindt’s view, the annual number of refugees admitted to Germany must be significantly lower than 200,000. This figure was once proposed as a cap by Faeser’s predecessor Horst Seehofer.

However, it has been far exceeded in the past two years, with 600,000 asylum seekers registered – on top of which the 1.2 million Ukrainians now in Germany must be included in the total, the interior minister said.

“So today, a theoretical cap of 200,000 is no longer workable – it would also be far too high from today’s perspective.”