LONDON: The number of asylum seekers has risen sharply in recent years in the United Kingdom, with tens of thousands of applications still waiting to be decided, according to official figures.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Thursday that he had begun formal talks with unspecified countries to create “return centers” outside the UK for those who have exhausted all legal avenues to remain in the country.

The number of asylum seekers in the UK has tripled in recent years, with 84,200 applications in 2024, compared with an average of 27,500 between 2011 and 2020, according to official figures.

In 2022, there were approximately 13 asylum applications per 10,000 people in the UK, compared with 25 asylum applications per 10,000 people in the EU at the same time.

Some 11 percent of migrants in the UK were asylum seekers or refugees in 2023 — almost twice as high as the 2019 figure of six percent.

The proportion of initial asylum applications rejected in 2024 was 53 percent, compared with 88 percent in 2004 and 24 percent in 2022.

Between 2004 and 2021, approximately three-quarters of applicants whose initial request was rejected appealed the decision, with a third being succesful.

More than 9,000 failed asylum seekers were deported in 2024 — 36 percent more than in 2023.

Some 224,700 cases were a “work in progress” in 2024, with 87,200 awaiting an initial decision and 137,500 awaiting follow-up after an initial refusal, according to official documents.

This total has been declining since 2022 but remains four times higher than in 2014 due to longer waiting times for an initial decision and a larger number of people facing deportation.

The number of people crossing the Channel in makeshift boats, a route that virtually did not exist before 2018, has increased sharply in recent years.

Between 2018 and December 2024, 148,000 migrants risked their lives and reached UK shores by this route, according to official figures.

Of those, 95 percent applied for asylum, representing 29 percent of all asylum seekers over that period.

Nearly 13,000 migrants have already crossed the Channel in 2025, more than in the same period in 2024.

In 2024, the largest group of asylum seekers hailed from Pakistan, followed by Afghanistan. In previous years, they came mainly from Syria and Iran.

KARACHI: Former premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party spokesperson on Thursday rejected a news report that claimed he had given the green signal for fresh negotiations with the government, describing it as “fake news.”

Pakistani English language newspaper “The News” reported on Thursday that Khan had accepted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s offer to hold negotiations and instructed the party’s chairman, Gohar Ali Khan, to proceed with talks. The report said Khan had expressed “a strong preference” that the talks be conducted away from the TV cameras to ensure “meaningful outcomes.”

The PTI and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government have been at loggerheads ever since Khan was ousted from the prime minister’s office via a parliamentary vote in April 2022. The former premier has been in jail since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated. His party has led anti-government protests and marches that have led to clashes with law enforcement personnel.

“There is no such statement made by Imran Khan,” Sayed Zulfikar Bokhari, Khan’s adviser on international affairs and a former federal minister, told Arab News. “It is fake news. Neither has any offer been made to sit with Shehbaz Sharif or vice versa.”

Meanwhile, Gohar declined to comment on the development. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar and the government’s legal spokesperson, Aqeel Malik, did not respond to Arab News’ request for a comment.

Attempts to break the political deadlock in the country via a dialogue between the PTI and the government began in December 2024. However, talks collapsed after the PTI in January presented its demands, which included the formation of judicial commissions to probe the party’s anti-government protests in May 2023 and November 2024.

The violent protest rallies, including the one on May 9, 2023, saw people carrying PTI flags rampage through military offices and installations. A second anti-government protest in November 2024 was held by the party to demand Khan’s release from prison. The government says four troops were killed in clashes with Khan supporters. The PTI denies the charges and claimed its supporters were shot by law enforcers.

The PTI gave the government seven days to form the judicial commissions, after the expiry of which the party unilaterally withdrew from talks in January.