BERLIN: The number of new asylum seekers in Germany has fallen for a second year in a row following the mass influx that peaked in 2015, the government said on Sunday.

For all of 2017, “I presume a total of fewer than 200,000 migrants,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere was quoted as saying by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The EU’s top economy has taken in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015, around half from conflict-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, in a mass intake that sparked a xenophobic backlash.

The total for 2015 reached 890,000, but arrivals slowed sharply after several Balkans transit countries shuttered their borders and the EU in March 2016 reached a deal with Turkey to stop crossings to the Greek islands.

Arrivals of new asylum seekers to Germany fell back to around 280,000 in 2016.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under strong pressure for her liberal immigration policy, and her Bavarian allies the CSU have long pushed for a maximum intake of 200,000 refugees a year.

Merkel has agreed to the figure but labelled it a “benchmark” rather than an iron-cast maximum.

De Maiziere said that by late November this year, the number of new asylum seekers in Germany stood at around 173,000.

Meanwhile, a day earlier thirty-two Turkish nationals, reportedly opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, were rescued by a patrol boat in the Aegean Sea.

The group was spotted in an rubber dinghy off the Greek island of Oinousses, overnight Thursday to Friday, the coastguard told AFP.

Greek media said the 32 Turks are opponents of Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) and would be seeking asylum in Greece. The reports have not been confirmed by Greek authorities.

They were taken to the island of Chios, where migrants and refugees crossing the area, often from Turkey, are registered and identified.

A man believed to be a smuggler who was also onboard the boat was arrested by police.

Erdogan last month made the first visit by a Turkish head of state to its neighbour and sometimes ally Greece in 65 years.

Turkey is unhappy that Greece has failed to extradite suspects wanted over the 2016 failed coup, notably eight officers who escaped by helicopter on the putsch night.

However, the two countries are cooperating over the migrant crisis, following a deal between Turkey and the EU which has significantly stemmed the flow of people to Europe.

Separately, a Libyan official says coast guards have rescued at least 270 migrants off Libya’s eastern coast.

Navy official El Hadi Kheil said on Saturday that the Arab and African migrants, who included women and children, were taken to a navy base in the capital, Tripoli.

“We were lost and didn’t know where to direct our boat,” Omar Yusef, a Sudanese migrant, told reporters, “We called the coast guard and a helicopter came and guided us.” Libya descended into chaos following an uprising in 2011 that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Muammer Qaddafi. It has since become a frequently used perilous route to Europe for those fleeing poverty and civil war in the region. Libyan authorities have recently stepped up efforts to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

Agencies