Germany agrees to host six more Taliban diplomats in deal for monthly deportation flights to Afghanistan
Berlin has reached a deal with the Taliban to run up to three charter deportation flights per month, plus unlimited individual removals on scheduled airlines, after conceding to demands for more Taliban consular staff in Germany.
The deal
Germany will expand deportations of convicted Afghan criminals under an arrangement with the Taliban regime it does not recognise. The Interior Ministry said up to three charter flights a month will operate to Kabul, and individuals can be sent on regular commercial flights at any time. A ministry spokesperson described the talks that produced the agreement as having been held 'at a technical level', a formulation Berlin uses to avoid implying diplomatic recognition of the de facto rulers.
Whoever abuses our protection and commits serious crimes here must look for a perspective in their home country. Our society has a legitimate interest in ensuring that criminals leave our country.
Concessions to Kabul
According to NDR research, the deal was clinched at a multi-day confidential meeting in an Istanbul hotel last week between senior Interior Ministry officials, diplomats and Taliban representatives. The German side agreed to a central Taliban demand: six additional Taliban diplomats will be allowed into Germany to join the two consular officials already present since summer 2025. Those existing officials have, the reports say, effectively taken over the running of the Afghan embassy in Berlin. The Taliban insisted the extra staff were needed to verify deportees' Afghan nationality and issue travel documents.
Scale and recent record
Around 100 Afghan convicts are currently in regular detention or deportation custody awaiting removal, according to Bild am Sonntag. So far in 2026, three charter flights have carried 77 Afghan nationals back, and a recent flight sent 32 men convicted of rape, murder, child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and robbery. The new arrangement makes charter flights a regular occurrence for the first time.
Criticism from rights groups and opposition
Pro Asyl condemned the plan as a human-rights catastrophe.
Green parliamentary secretary Filiz Polat said the government was making itself 'blackmailable' and sacrificing foreign-policy principles, demanding Dobrindt disclose what demands had been met. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group rejected the criticism.With this deportation deal Germany is normalising an internationally ostracised regime that completely disenfranchises women and systematically persecutes opposition members. It is disastrous in human rights terms and foolish in foreign policy terms.
Deporting rapists, threats and drug dealers, including to Afghanistan, makes Germany safer. That is what this is about.
A wider European push
The German initiative is part of a broader European effort. The EU has invited a Taliban delegation to Brussels this June for talks on an accelerated deportation pact. The delegation, led by foreign ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi, is expected to meet senior Commission and External Action Service officials, with Sweden helping to coordinate the contacts.
