Taliban minister endorses return of Afghan migrants from Iran
Afghan migrants in Iran have faced violence and hostility recently, according to reports, and the Islamic Republic has vowed to deport them by the end of the year.
A Taliban minister said on Tuesday that Afghanistan seeks the return of its citizens from Iran and wants to work with the Islamic Republic to this end amid reports of hardship faced by refugees and killings.
What happened: Khalil Rahman Haqqani, the Afghan minister for refugees and repatriations, met Iranian ambassador Kazemi Qomi in Kabul on Tuesday. The ministry said in a statement following the meeting that Afghanistan has “decided to return refugees to the country,” but qualified that by saying a “joint mechanism should be created” to facilitate the process.
During the meeting, Qomi “rejected media reports claiming the mistreatment of Afghan migrants in Iran and emphasized that Tehran is committed to all the rights of migrants,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
There are currently 750,000 Afghan refugees in Iran, out of 762,000 refugees overall, according to Iranian government figures.
