(AP) France has agreed to help initiate talks between Cyprus and French-speaking African countries for a deal to take back their citizens whose asylum applications have been rejected, the Cypriot interior minister said Saturday.
Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said his French counterpart Gerald Darmanin made the pledge during a brief visit to the Cypriot capital on Friday.
Nouris said “the overwhelming majority” of migrants who arrived at ethnically split Cyprus in the last year hail from sub-Saharan African countries with which the European Union doesn’t have such send-back agreements. Nouris said he would possibly travel to Paris next month to thrash out details of such potential agreements and other migration issues.
