“I do not support the establishment of asylum reception centers outside the European Union,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Rudaw’s Znar Shino during a press conference.
“However, I support the protection of the European Union’s borders to reduce the number of asylum seekers,” he added.
Tens of thousands of mostly young people leave Iraq and the Kurdistan Region for Europe annually in search of a better life, using people’s smuggling routes. A number of these migrants die in freezing temperatures on the border and others drown in the sea. Many of them plan to arrive in Germany.
Addressing the dire situation of refugees outside the EU’s borders, Scholz said “the registration of asylum seekers in countries outside the EU must be improved.”
On Wednesday, Scholz and the heads of Germany’s states approved tougher measures to curb migration amid a recent influx in asylum seekers.
Some 36,000 Iraqis live in Germany without residency permits, according to Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.
In January, Hussein told Rudaw that Scholz had requested assistance from Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to support Berlin to find a mechanism to deport tens of thousands of Iraqis who are illegally residing in Germany.
Germany is considered as the European country with the largest number of Kurds. Over a million Kurds from Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey have sought asylum in the country over the past decades.
Amid a wave of migration from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region to Belarus in late 2021, which drew international attention, German officials called on Kurdish migrants to build their future at home rather than taking the dangerous route of migration to Europe via the Belarus-Poland border.
According to AFP, nearly 102,000 asylum applications were filed in Germany in the first four months of 2023, a 78 percent increase from the same period last year. The largest number of applicants are from Syria and Afghanistan, followed by Turkey and Iraq.
