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Iraqi rejects forced deportation of asylum seekers: ambassador

Xinhua, January 13, 2017 Adjust font size:

Iraq's ambassador to Finland said on Thursday that Iraq does not accept forced deportation of asylum seekers to the country, Finnish daily Iltalehti reported.

Matheel Al-Sabti, Iraqi ambassador to Finland, told the newspaper that the Iraqi government only accepts voluntary returns.

At the beginning of December last year, Finnish media reported that in addition to nearly 3,000 voluntary returns assisted by the Finnish police and the International Organization of Migration, the Finnish police were facilitating the forced returns of rejected Iraqi asylum seekers.

A representative of the Finnish police told media earlier that individual forced returns to Iraq were carried when some refused to leave voluntarily, despite the absence of an agreement between the two countries on repatriation.

Finland and Iraq are currently negotiating an agreement on deportation of people whose asylum applications have been rejected.

According to the ambassador, the cooperation with the Finnish authorities is going well and smoothly, but Iraq does not agree with Finland's idea of forced returns.

Al-Sabti told the newspaper that if Finland wants to repatriate asylum seekers to Iraq by force, it will cause problems at the Baghdad airport.

He said he will meet the commissioner of Helsinki Police Lasse Aapio as soon as possible to discuss the implementation of forded returns.

A total of more than 32,500 asylum seekers arrived in Finland in 2015. Over 20,000 of them were from Iraq. In 2016, more than 1,000 Iraqis entered Finland.

By June of 2016, 77 percent of asylum decisions for Iraqi applicants had been rejected, as the Finnish immigration agency ruled in May 2016 that Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan were safe for refugees to return.

However, the agency announced in mid-November 2016 that it would reassess the security situation for the three countries in January of 2017 in accordance with the new rounds of armed conflicts occurred there. Endit