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Posted: Nov 6, 2021 / 2:45 pm CDT
Updated: 11/6/2021 / 2:45 p.m. CDT
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) – France agreed to open talks between Cyprus and French-speaking African countries to enter into an agreement to take back their citizens whose asylum applications have been rejected, the Cypriot interior minister said on Saturday.
Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said his French counterpart Gerald Darmanin made the promise on a short visit to the Cypriot capital on Friday.
Nouris said that “the overwhelming majority” of migrants who arrived in ethnically divided Cyprus last year came from sub-Saharan Africa with which the European Union does not have such return agreements. Nouris said he may travel to Paris next month to discuss details of such potential deals and other migration issues.
Cyprus says it has the highest number of first-time asylum applications of any EU 27, relative to its 1.1 million population, and its reception system has reached a breaking point.
Around 80% of all migrants come to Cyprus from the breakaway north and then cross a porous, United Nations-controlled buffer zone to seek asylum in the internationally recognized south.
According to Nouris, 15,000 migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected cannot be deported from Cyprus as there are no EU return agreements with their countries.
Cyprus this week signed a € 27.5 million (US $ 31.8 million) contract with Israel to install a camera system to monitor the 180-kilometer buffer zone.
The Cypriot government claims that Turkey is systematically referring asylum seekers to the Turkish Cypriot north of the Mediterranean island in order to put pressure on the UN-recognized southern government of the island.
Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup by unification supporters with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the north. Decades of reunification talks have brought nothing.
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Follow all AP stories on global migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.
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https://www.kxan.com/news/international/cyprus-france-to-help-migration-talks-with-african-nations/
