June 10, 2002	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 28,1423

LONDON, June 9: Britain has earmarked disused military bases for the accommodation of thousands of refugees entering the country should war break out between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a newspaper here reported on Sunday, quoting government officials.

“If there is large-scale war then millions of people will be displaced and, for historical and cultural reasons, we must assume that a large percentage would wish to come to Britain,” The Sunday Telegraph quoted a Home Office official as saying.

“We have to be prepared for a large number of people coming in a short space of time and that is why we have drawn up these contingency plans to use former military bases,” he added.

The Home Office has drawn up plans to house up to 5,000 refugees at three former bases in rural northern England, said the paper. Should need arise for greater accommodation, 10 more government properties are lined up to be used as emergency holding centres.

More than one million people in India and Pakistan are related to British citizens, said the Telegraph. Home Secretary David Blunkett would ask Europe to share the burden of any influx, it added.

The Foreign Office last week advised Britons to leave India and Pakistan, hardening previous advice that they should “consider” getting out as tensions increased between the nuclear neighbours.

Up to 20,000 British expatriates live in India, of which half are registered with consular officials, according to estimates by the Foreign Office, which recognises that the real figure could be much higher.

Iran vows to accept refugees: Iran is worried by the threat of war breaking out in two bordering countries, Pakistan and Iraq, and is preparing to take in refugees if the situation deteriorates into armed conflict, a government official said on Sunday.

“We are very concerned that war has been evoked,” Ahmad Hosseini, the senior interior ministry official charged with refugee affairs told AFP.

“Whether we are dealing with Iraq or Pakistan, the policy we have with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is to assist the refugees at the border and send them back to their country when the crisis comes to an end,” he said.

The United States has been hinting that an attack on Iraq might be the next step in its unilaterally declared “war on terror”, while tension has recently mounted between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.

—AFP