Türkiye has refuted reports that it signed a new migration pact with Germany under which Berlin would deport every week thousands of Turks with rejected asylum applications.
“Claims that Türkiye and Germany have struck a new refugee deal and 200 refugees have already been deported to Türkiye are baseless,” the Presidential Directorate of Communications' anti-disinformation center said in a statement on Sunday.
The Foreign Ministry too has denied reports in German media that Germany plans to send back to Türkiye 13,500 Turkish citizens without legal residence permits, the directorate said.
“The said reports don’t include any claims that foreign asylum-seekers will be sent to Türkiye but certain platforms are pushing for a manipulation campaign that refugees will be sent to Türkiye,” the directorate pointed out.
It said there was “no agreement between Türkiye and Germany about the mass deportation of Turkish citizens without legal residence permits.”
As part of existing agreements, Turkish citizens without legal residence permits may be admitted individually with the authorization of Turkish Foreign Affairs officials after exercising all their legal rights within German law, namely objections to rejections, according to the directorate.
“There is absolutely no question of accepting third country citizens (Syria, Afghanistan and similar) without legal residence permits to Türkiye, regardless of whether they are en masse or individuals,” the directorate said.
Referring to social media posts with the claims that some 200 refugees were deported to Türkiye, the directorate said the images were fabricated and distributed by propaganda accounts of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which orchestrated a bloody coup attempt in Türkiye in July 2016.
“The images were recorded at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport and the airline the passengers are using did not have any flights from Germany to Türkiye in recent weeks,” the directorate added, urging the public not to heed reports designed for manipulation.
Several German outlets last week wrote that after long negotiations, Türkiye and Germany had reached an agreement to deport Turkish refugees back to their home country faster.
According to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the agreement was made during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Berlin last November, which the Turkish directorate said was false, noting that the issue was never raised during Erdoğan’s meeting with German Chancellor Scholz in New York last week either.
Türkiye, which already hosts 4 million refugees and poses as a transit point for thousands of asylum-seekers looking to cross over to Europe, signed a deal with the European Union to restrict migration in 2016 during the height of the migrant crisis.
While Turkish-EU ties are hamstrung, a renewal of the deal is being floated, mostly by EU nations like Germany and Greece, which receive the majority of asylum applications.
A deadly attack by a Syrian asylum-seeker in Solingen last month has sparked public debate on migration and fueled xenophobic sentiments in Germany and Berlin has since tightened asylum policies and accelerated deportations.
After World War II, Europe received an influx of migrants from Türkiye, some through “guest worker” agreements and others seeking a higher income amid the postwar construction boom on the continent. Germany today hosts the biggest Turkish community on the continent, mostly descendants of “guest workers.”
About half of some 2.8 million Turks in Germany still hold Turkish passports, while others hold German citizenship.
Türkiye itself is working to reverse a brain drain that has increased in recent years.
Germany was the second country following the U.S. to receive the most Turkish university graduates in 2021-2023, according to figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Brain drain rates of higher education graduates were 1.6 % in 2015 and 2% in 2023, TurkStat said.
