Last night, the Turkish Foreign Ministry, in a statement by its spokesman Onztu Keceli, denied claims that Turkish citizens without a residence permit in Germany will be sent back to their homeland.

Ketseli in his post on X about similar reports “The news in the German press about the return to Turkey of our citizens who do not have the right to reside legally in Germany, do not reflect the truth. No practice regarding the mass deportation of our citizens has been approved. This issue was not raised during the meeting between our President Tayyip Erdoğan and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in New York on September 23, as the German press claims.

There was also a rebuttal from the Anti-Disinformation Center of the Communication Directorate of the Turkish Presidency which announced that: “The claim in the German press that Germany and Turkey reached an agreement that every week, 500 Turks who do not have the right to reside legally in Germany, they will be sent to Turkey by special flights, it is not true”.

Is the announcement a diplomatic maneuver?

It is particularly interesting that Turkey denies an agreement reportedly reached between Erdoğan and Scholz on September 23 in New York in which Turkey gave assurances to Germany that there would be no problems in the repatriation process. In fact, last May, President Erdoğan’s foreign policy advisor, Akif Çagatay Kilic, told the German newspaper “Die Welt” that “if Turkish citizens are in another country without permission, they must return to Turkey.”

However, a closer reading of the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s statement gives a different meaning to the denial as it states that “no practice regarding the mass deportation of our citizens has been approved,” meaning that the final decision has not yet been made. This may be a diplomatic maneuver for a temporary delay, as such a decision would have a serious impact at home, where thousands of Turks, mainly young people, are ready to leave for mainly economic reasons to Germany.