ISLAMABAD, April 17: The United Nations urged Pakistan on Thursday to revise its plan to repatriate 2.4 million Afghan refugees by 2009, saying the strategy was unworkable and might fuel militancy.

Pakistan announced the plan last year, largely in response to international criticism over cross-border attacks by Taliban militants who Pakistan says often shelter in refugee camps.

“People are not commodities,” Kilian Kleinschmidt, assistant representative in Pakistan for the UN refugee agency, told The Associated Press. “The strategy based on the policy that all the Afghans should be repatriated by 2009 needs to be revised and reviewed.”

Most of the refugees arrived in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s or were born here.

The majority make a living in towns and cities and do not live in camps.

The repatriations are meant to be voluntary, but the vast majority of the refugees who have registered in Pakistan say they do not want to return to Afghanistan. They lack land to settle on and fear fighting between Taliban militants and Nato and Afghan government forces.

On Thursday, Pakistan acknowledged that conditions in Afghanistan made it unlikely it could reach its repatriation target — but it said it still aimed for most of the refugees to go back by the end of 2009.

“We will give it our best shot,” said Imran Zeb Khan, Pakistan’s commissioner for Afghan refugees. He appealed to Afghanistan to provide land and to the international community to fund development work for returning refugees.

“We don’t want Pakistan alone to carry this burden. Our concerns should be addressed. Just saying that since 2.4 million people can’t return so Pakistan can keep them as long as situation in Afghanistan does not improve --- that’s something we cannot accept,” Khan said.—AP