ISLAMABAD, Jan 30: The tripartite agreement between Islamabad, Kabul and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), scheduled for signing in Geneva in January 2003, has been delayed at least for a couple of months.

The delay has been caused due to Afghan interim government’s objection on a couple of agreement’s clauses, official sources told Dawn on Thursday.

The interim Afghan government asked for some changes in the agreement finalised in Islamabad last year and it had been accepted and is expected to be signed at Geneva by the middle of March, sources told.

The agreement is mainly focussed on voluntary repatriation of registered 1.8 million Afghan refugees to complete returning home of their total known population in Pakistan. The figure reflects only the registered Afghan DPs which are now estimated at 0.4 million, spread across the country. Already, 1.6 million Afghan DPs were repatriated under voluntary repatriation programme of the UNHCR in 2002.

The amended draft agreement, earlier approved by the federal cabinet, would be required to be approved again before its readying for putting signatures by the representatives of three parties at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, sources said.

The agreement drafted at the ministry of Safron in consultation with the UNHCR and approved by the federal cabinet was made public in presence of visiting Afghan minister for refugees’ rehabilitation and the Federal Minister for Safron, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao.

The Afghan minister, however, had echoed his reservations on some details of the agreement at a news conference in Islamabad as in his opinion returning and rehabilitation of the desired number of refugees would be an Herculean task unless conditions at home were made fully congenial.

It appears that the Kabul government pointed out the same concern during their meeting with the Pakistani high officials, including during a former minister’s visit to the Afghan capital in October. They objected on two clauses of the agreement, a source in the Afghan DPs organisation confided to Dawn, which were rectified in the final draft, also in consultation with the UNHCR representatives.

The officials, without revealing the details of the agreement, said it was rehashing of the same old agreement under which the UNHCR was bound to afford certain amount of cash and wheat as assistance, except for a couple of new clauses.

Pakistan, it may be mentioned, has expressed deep concern over the presence of such a large number of Afghan DPs over the years which is not only becoming a burden on the national economy but also causing ecological, political, social and environmental problems.