Official: Afghanistan will accept deportees from Germany

A Kabul official says authorities will take back all Afghan citizens being deported from Germany, which is struggling to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees and other migrants who have arrived in the European country this year.

Afghans currently make up the second largest nationality, after Syrians, arriving in Europe.

Deputy presidential spokesman, Zafar Hashemi, says that as a signatory to the Geneva Convention, Afghanistan is obliged to accept its citizens whose asylum applications have been rejected.

Hashemi says President Ashraf Ghani and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the issue recently.

The decision comes despite earlier disapproval by the Afghan Minister for Refugees and Repatriation Hossain Alemi Balkhi of Germany's decision to return Afghans.

Balkhi's office said Monday that so far this year, 120,000 Afghans have left the country.

- AP