UN set to repatriate up to half million Afghan refugees from Iran this year

The head of the United Nations refugee agency arrived today in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, for the second leg of his three-nation mission to the region after holding talks in Tehran to lay the groundwork for repatriating up to half a million Afghans from Iran.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ruud Lubbers visited an assistance centre for returning refugees in Kabul before meeting Afghanistan's Refugees and Repatriation Minister, Enayatullah Nazari. He will hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday.

Earlier, during two days of talks in Tehran, Mr. Lubbers conferred with Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Saftar Hosseini about the voluntary repatriation programme. They discussed security problems and other difficulties still affecting some parts of Afghanistan.

Mr. Lubbers also held a two-hour meeting with 10 Afghan refugee community leaders, including four women, who told him of their concerns about the availability of shelter and jobs for returnees. Security seemed to be less of a concern for them than for refugees in Pakistan, which Mr. Lubbers will visit on Sunday, perhaps reflecting differences in the situation in western and central Afghanistan, home to the majority of those in Iran.

The women clearly had mixed feelings about returning to their homeland, where the ousted Taliban regime had imposed severe restrictions, including limits on girls' education. "Iran has given us women many opportunities such as access to education, employment and a certain independence," one of them said. "Many of us are uncertain about whether we will have the same conditions when we return."

Mr. Lubbers acknowledged that the situation remains difficult for women in some parts of Afghanistan, but he stressed the important contribution women returnees can make to rebuilding and modernizing their homeland.

Over 400,000 of the up to 2 million Afghan refugees estimated to be in Iran have so far returned home with UNHCR assistance since the beginning of 2002.

In another development, a spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told reporters today that the situation in Maimana, the capital of Faryab province in the country's northwest, "continues to be calm."

Last week additional Afghan National Army troops were deployed to Faryab after reports of sporadic gunfire in Maimana. The spokesman said the suspension of UN road movements in the area has been lifted in almost all areas and there were no confirmed reports of fighting in any of Faryab's districts.