Pakistan cannot accept more Afghan refugees, says Pak NSA adviser Moeed Yusuf
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Islamabad: While requesting a the international community is to make arrangements for the Afghan Refugee inside Afghanistan,Pakistani National Security Advisor (NSA) Moeed Yusuf has made it clear that the country cannot accomodate more Afghan refugees.
If a civil war erupts in Afghanistan, the asylum seekers should not be pushed towards Pakistan, said Yusuf, as per media reports.
Moeed Yusuf and Faiz Hameed, head of Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had embarked on a visit to the US for discussions over Afghanistan and bilateral issues.
Addressing a press conference in Washington, Moeed Yusuf said that safe zones should be established within Afghanistan for the refugees.
Pakistani officials are demanding that the world make arrangements for the refugees inside Afghanistan, amid fears that millions of Afghans may be forced to flee into neighbouring countries if fighting between Taliban and government forces intensify or deteriorate into a civil war.
"As a matter of fact, we are not in position to accept any more refugees," Yusuf said during an earlier VOA interview.
Earlier, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had said the country is already hosting nearly three million Afghan refugees and it does not have the capacity to accept more.
According to the UN, almost 3 million Afghan refugees, half of them unregistered, have been living in Pakistan since the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and subsequent waves of violence and later a civil war.