BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel's party is calling for stricter laws regulating asylum seekers after a string of New Year's Eve sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne blamed largely on foreigners.

The reports of the attacks on women by groups of men described by police as predominantly Arab or North African in origin have fueled calls for tighter controls in Germany, which received nearly 1.1 million migrants in 2015.

The dpa news agency reported that leaders of Merkel's Christian Democrats meeting Saturday in Mainz agreed on a proposal to strengthen the ability of police to conduct checks of identity papers, and also to exclude foreigners from being granted asylum who had been convicted of crimes and sentenced to terms even as light as probation.

The proposal would need parliamentary approval.