KABUL, Aug 24: Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, will hold a tripartite meeting this week in Kabul to discuss refugees and ways to close some camps in Pakistan, a UNHCR spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Some 19,000 Afghan refugees were relocated from a precarious camp on the southern Afghan-Pakistan border following the tripartite commission’s first meeting in May.

“In a similar spirit of cooperation and respect for voluntary decisions of Afghan refugees, this meeting will review Pakistan’s plans for 2004 and 2005, including ways to consolidate and close some of the camps inside Pakistan,” Maki Shinohara told reporters at a press conference.

The two-day meeting, to open on Tuesday, will also address ways to involve Afghan refugees in elections scheduled for June next year.

Pakistan’s delegation will be headed by Pervaiz Saleem, newly-appointed secretary for the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, and includes three commissioners from Afghan refugees.

Deputy Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Mohammad Naeem Ghiacy would lead the Afghan team.

Around 260,000 refugees have returned home from Pakistan with United Nations assistance so far this year, Shinohara said, bringing to 1.8 million the number of Afghans voluntarily repatriated from Pakistan since the assistance scheme started in March 2002.

Another 136,000 refugees have returned home from Iran so far this year.

This year’s returns are well below those of last year when more than 1.8 million refugees returned home with UN assistance.—AFP