FLASH
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Austria's caretaker government announced on Monday that it has ordered a halt to processing Syrian asylum applications after rebels took over Damascus and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, 13 years into the civil war.
The civil war forced millions of Syrians to flee the country. They were a large part of the one million people who went to Germany and Austria during the European migrant crisis in 2015 and 2016.
Criticism against that infection continues to increase support for the far-right party and the conservatives.
"Chancellor Karl Nehammer today instructed Interior Minister Gerhard Karner to suspend all current asylum applications and review all asylum cases," Austria's Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Karner added: "I have instructed the Ministry to prepare a program for repatriation and deportation to Syria", without explaining how this would be done.
Nehammer said on X Sunday that the security situation in Syria must be reassessed to allow deportations to resume.
The ministry said it would also suspend family reunifications, under which families of refugees can be reunited with them.
Syrians are the largest group of asylum seekers in Austria, with 12,871 applications this year to November.
Nehammer and Karner come from the conservative People's Party (OVP), which has tough stances on immigration, similar to the far-right Freedom Party (FPO).
Nehammer is in talks for a governing coalition with two other parties, which aim to form the new government without the FPO, despite the fact that the FPO came first in September's parliamentary elections.
The Ministry of the Interior said that it has not yet been decided on 12,886 requests for asylum, of which 1,146 are related to family reunification./ REL
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