TEHRAN – Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said Afghan refugees will return to their country in a progressive and dignified process.
He said officials from both countries are working on a plan to return Afghans resident in Iran, the IRNA reported.
“We are negotiating with the Afghan government, so this process can be carried out in a principled and organized way.
They do not want the return of the people (Afghanistan) to be a social crisis in both countries. The key principle for us is to work on logical and rational procedures,” he explained.
Iran’s Islamic Republic hosts one of the world’s largest and longest-running refugee groups, most of which are Afghan refugees.
The country is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and approximately 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than half a million Afghan children, including undocumented Afghans, benefit from Iran’s comprehensive education policy, one of the most progressive in the world.
If the international community is responsible and refrains from fair sharing of the burden of hosting refugees, Iran’s Islamic Republic will likely amend its immigration policy, said Nader Yalmadi, a national immigration agency official.