The number of Turkish citizens who fled Turkey following a failed coup last year and applied for asylum in Germany reached 620 in July, over 433 in June and 498 May, the German Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
According to a Deutsche Welle report on Thursday, the German Interior Ministry replied to a parliamentary question from the Left Party on thennumber of asylum seekers in Germany.
The ministry said 22 percent of Turkish asylum seekers in Germany were accepted by German authorities as of early July, over 8.7 percent in early April of this year.
Sevim Dağdelen, foreign affairs spokesman for the Left Party, said after the interior ministry’s response to their parliamentary question that the number of asylum seekers shows Turkey is far from democracy, the rule of law and respect for human dignity.
Demanding that the EU end accession talks with Turkey, Dağdelen said, “The stories of asylum seekers [in EU countries] alone are enough to end accession talks and 630 million euros monetary aid to Turkey as part of accession talks.”
“This mockery must end,” she concluded.
According to data from the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), a total of 3,206 Turkish nationals applied for asylum in Germany in the first six months of 2017.
According to a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel in early May, at least 450 Turkish diplomats, military personnel, judges and other civil servants have been seeking asylum in Germany in a bid to escape a post-coup crackdown back home.
The development has angered Ankara, with Turkish officials voicing regrets over Germany’s decision to grant asylum to Turkish officers. (turkishminute.com)
