Harassment of Afghan refugees not acceptable: Vahidi

KABUL (Pajhwok): Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has said harassment of Afghan refugees is not acceptable.

Iran Press news agency quoted Vahidi as responding to a question from a reporter on the sidelines of a government meeting: “Iranians accepted Afghan refugees with open arms, but those who do not have legal residency documents should leave the country.”

He admitted that some Iranian people had concerns about the situation of immigrants and these concerns were acceptable and the immigrants would be organized.

“Iran helped these people and gave them facilities so that their children could go to schools. But some people are trying to turn the good relations between the peoples of the two countries into a challenge, and this is definitely the design of the enemies of the two countries,” he said, but did not name any country.

Earlier, according to a Pajhwok Afghan News report, Iran ambassador and special representative for Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi had said Iran was hosting a large number of Afghan refugees.

He said about six million Afghans were living in Iran, 750,000 children were studying in schools and one million people were working in that country.

kk/ma

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