Pakistan will not force some 2 million Afghan refugees in the country to leave but encourages voluntary repatriation, a Pakistani cabinet minister said Monday, as the legal stay of around 1.4 million registered refugees in Pakistan will end on March 31.
According to Pakistani media, Pakistan Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch told members of the Pak-Afghan Track II Dialogue in Islamabad that Pakistan is treating refugees issue purely on humanitarian grounds, separating it from the security or political domain.
Pakistan also hosts nearly 1 million unregistered Afghan refugees in the country, whose documentation is currently underway across the country.
On January 31, the Pakistani cabinet extended the stay of the registered Afghan refugees in the country for 60 days.
“The refugees have nothing to do with security situation. Also there is no serious law and order issue or conflict witnessed between the local communities in Pakistan and Afghan refugees,” the minister said as Pakistani leaders routinely cite the longer stay of refugees as one of the security issues.
The minister said Pakistan is working in close coordination with the UN refugee agency and the Afghan Embassy to deal with the refugees’ dignified return.
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