TEHRAN – Spokesman for Taliban’s Ministry of Interior Affairs Abdul Matin Qani has said in a post on X that Iran has never tried to use Afghan refugees to assert political pressure despite having hosted millions of them for decades. 

He also pointed to the affinities between Iran and Afghanistan, saying the Taliban seeks good relations with Afghanistan’s neighbor, including Iran.  

Qani also stressed that the Taliban would never allow Iran’s enemies to use Afghanistan’s soil against it. 

According to previous remarks by Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iran currently hosts more than 4.5 million Afghan refugees. Iran has largely sheltered these people on its own despite repeatedly calling on international organizations to play their part. The country was reportedly the destination of 63% of Afghan refugees in 2022.

Inna Gladkova, the officer in charge of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iran, previously appreciated the country for generously hosting refugees.  

“The scale of the global refugee crisis requires greater solidarity and burden sharing. Iran’s exemplary efforts cannot be sustained without continued international support,” said the UN official in a statement. 

Despite domestic challenges, Iran has always tried to treat Afghan refugees with respect. It has extended support to refugee children, allowing them to access education in public schools alongside Iranian children.

Iran’s deputy minister of education for international affairs and schools abroad, announced in February that some $335 million is spent annually on the education of foreign students in the country, most of whom are from Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban took over in 2020, foreign-based media has been pouring all its efforts into creating an anti-Afghanistan sentiment in Iran. Most recently, media outlets have been trying to portray Afghans as a threat to Iran’s security after the Shah Cheragh shrine in the southcentral city of Shiraz came under two separate attacks over the last year. That’s while it has been revealed that the two terrorists responsible for the attacks were not Afghan nationals, with one of them being from the Republic of Azerbaijan and the other from Tajikistan. 

MHA/PA