KABUL (AFP) – Pakistan’s foreign minister arrived in Afghanistan to meet Taleban officials after his country expelled more than 85,000 Afghans, mostly children, in just over two weeks.
Islamabad has launched a strict campaign to evict by the end of April more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in Pakistan or lived there for decades. Convoys of Afghan families have been heading to border crossings each day fearing raids, arrests or being separated from family members.
Pakistan’s foreign office said its top diplomat Ishaq Dar, along with his delegation of ministers, will hold meetings during the one-day visit with senior Afghan Taleban officials, including Prime Minister Hasan Akhund.
Dar was greeted warmly off the plane in the Afghan capital by the Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Minister for Financial and Administrative Affairs Mohammad Naeem, according to a video shared by Pakistan’s foreign office.
“There will not be any sort of leniency and extension in the deadline,” Pakistan’s Deputy Interior Minister Tallal Chaudhry told a news conference on Friday.
“When you arrive without any documents, it only deepens the uncertainty of whether you’re involved in narcotics trafficking, supporting terrorism or committing other crimes,” he added.
He has previously accused Afghans of being “terrorists and criminals”, but analysts say it is a politically motivated strategy to put pressure on Afghanistan’s Taleban government over escalating security concerns.
Chaudhry said that nearly 85,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since the start of April, the majority of them undocumented.
The United Nations’ (UN) refugee agency said more than half of them were children – entering a country where girls are banned from secondary school and university and women are barred from many sectors of work. Yesterday, Afghanistan’s Refugees Ministry spokesman told AFP the Taleban authorities had recorded some 71,000 Afghan returnees through the two main border points with Pakistan between April 1 and 18.
The UN said nearly three million Afghans have taken shelter in Pakistan after fleeing successive conflicts.
