October 29, 2001	Monday	Shaba'an 11, 1422

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QUETTA, Oct 28: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, said on Sunday he would urge Pakistan to be a little bit more flexible about accepting new Afghan refugees and not to deport those who had already entered the country in recent weeks because of US air strikes on their country.

He told a news conference in Quetta after a two-day stay in Balochistan that he would raise this question and his UNHCR agency’s demand for opening the borders for new Afghan refugees when he held talks with Pakistan authorities in Islamabad on Monday.

He said while the UNHCR had arranged 15 new camps to receive new Afghan refugees, “it is urgent to end deportation” and regularize the stay of those who had entered Pakistan illegally.

Lubbers said the UNHCR was asking Pakistan and other neighbours of Afghanistan to open their borders only for those people who were really in need of protection but not for everybody, and would like armed elements and potential trouble-makers to be barred from coming.

“That’s the basic line and I will speak along these lines in Islamabad,” he said.

Lubbers, a former Dutch prime minister who left for Islamabad later in the evening, is to hold talks with Pakistan authorities on Monday before leaving for Tehran for similar talks with Iranian authorities on the Afghan refugees there.