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Kabul, Islamabad make progress on repatriation plan

"If large numbers of Afghans return ... we cannot absorb them. They may go back to Pakistan and create more problems."

Abdul Qader Ahadi, Afghan executive minister of refugees and repatriation

Afghanistan and Pakistan edged closer to agreement on how to return more than 2 million Afghan refugees to their homeland after they fled to Pakistan 27 years ago, an official from the UN refugee agency said.

"We have now reached an agreement on the language of the text" on the voluntary repatriation, said Salvatore Lombardo, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative for Afghanistan, after the two sides held talks on Friday in Dubai. "I think in that respect it [meeting] was quite successful."

Pakistan has been pushing to repatriate the refugees to Afghanistan over a three year period, mainly in response to international criticism over cross-border attacks by Taliban militants who Pakistan says often shelter in refugee camps.

The two sides have been convening every three months under UNHCR auspices. The draft text, Lombardo said, is going back to the two governments for approval before signing.

Details of the plan were not available in Dubai.

Since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, more than 3 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan, including over 220,000 refugees so far this year. It is the biggest repatriation operation ever undertaken in the world.

The refugees fled to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Most are ethnic Pashtuns originating from Afghan border provinces and 90 percent of the refugees say they have no land there. More than 2.15 million still remain in Pakistan, mostly women, children and elderly.

Lombardo said the Pakistani plan envisages the refugees returning to their original homes in Afghanistan, not merely to new camps across the border.

"Those who are landless, the government will give them land," Afghan executive minister of refugees and repatriation Abdul Qader Ahadi said.

Affected Afghans have been given two options by the Pakistani government and "both options must be respected," said Guenet Guebre-Christos, UNHCR envoy in Pakistan.

"Those who choose to return home must be able to do so voluntarily, in safety and dignity," she said. "At the same time, the same principles must apply for those who cannot repatriate and choose to relocate to an existing camp in Pakistan."

But tensions in Afghanistan, where about 1,300 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, and the lack of land and services for returnees, has raised doubts about whether those plans are feasible.

Ahadi said Kabul still faces "serious challenges, such as a lack of housing, jobs, schools, clinics, security."

"If large numbers of Afghans return ... we cannot absorb them. They may go back to Pakistan and create more problems," he said.

At a previous meeting in February, the two sides agreed to close four Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, housing over 220,000 people, by September because of security concerns over rampant lawlessness.

Pakistani official for border issues with Afghanistan, Sajid Hussain Chattha, said there were widespread "unlawful activities" such as gunrunning in the camps, but denied any al-Qaeda-related activity there.

Lombardo appealed to the Pakistan government to ensure that the camps are closed as a result of dialogue with the elders and that no force is used.
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