KARACHI, June 17: A seminar titled The Future of Afghan Refugees Living in Pakistan was organized by the SDPI in collaboration with the UNHCR at a local hotel. Addressing the seminar, Central Joint Secretary of the Awami National Party Amin Khattak said that Afghan refugees were made a problem by the same people who were funding the UNHCR.

Elaborating, he recalled that some $35 billion had been spent on the Afghans’ war against the Soviet Union and now these Afghans were being abandoned and this had created the problem of three million refugees living in Pakistan.

He said that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR had signed an agreement at Bonn Conference that the Afghan refugees would leave Pakistan by 2006.

The ANP leader said that it was due to the very conference that the presidential and parliamentary elections in Afghanistan could not be held on time and, therefore, an extension in the refugees’ stay in Pakistan was being sought.

He said it was their demand that the Durrand Line issue be resolved and that Bannu-Khost, Jalalabad-Peshawar and Quetta-Kandahar be declared twin cities to facilitate free trade between the two countries.

Mr Khattak also demanded dual nationality for those Afghans living in refugee camps here for long.