Ulla Jelpke

A German lawmaker has questioned the relationship between her country's spy agency and FETÖ, with the government admitting that contact with the members of the group behind the failed 2016 coup attempt in Turkey continues, Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 29.

According to government data, 462 far-right extremists with warrants out for their arrest are still at large in Germany. Ulla Jelpke, a lawmaker for Die Linke (The Left) party, said the figure indicates the presence of an "established Nazi underground."

Germany's Interior Ministry has come under fire from the left-wing opposition after a decision to bring down the number of asylum-seeking family members allowed into the country from Greece to 70 a month, Deutsche Welle reports.

More than 200 people have left Germany since 2013 to take up arms with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, the German Interior Ministry has said, adding that 69 of them were German passport holders.

The proportion of people entering Germany with fake Syrian passports is far less than the 30 percent announced by the interior minister in September, the government has said.
 
Germany has to date maintained an open-door policy for Syrians escaping their country's bloodshed, giving them "primary protection" -- the highest status for refugees.