BERLIN, Sept 28: Germany said Friday it had agreed a plan with Turkey under which Berlin will step up deportations of failed Turkish asylum seekers, but Ankara denied any such deal had been struck.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser posted on X that "we have now reached a point where returns to Turkey can be carried out more quickly and effectively and that Turkey will more speedily take back citizens who are not allowed to stay in Germany.
"This is another building block in limiting irregular migration."
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) daily reported that Turkey had offered to soon take back up to 500 citizens per week on "special flights".
In return, Germany would ease visa rules for Turkish citizens wanting to visit the EU country for holidays or business trips, it said.
The FAZ report said the plan had been agreed after months of talks between the offices of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The German interior ministry declined to officially comment on the details of the reports when contacted by AFP.
But later Friday, Turkey's foreign ministry said the reports "regarding the return of our citizens who do not have a legal right to reside in Germany to Turkey is not true.
"No practice of mass deportation of our citizens has been authorised," a ministry spokesman said in a message on social media platform X. —AFP
