Iran Press/ Iran news: In a meeting with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi on Monday night, Hossein Amirabdollahian said that capacity for offering services to a greater volume of refugees does not exist in Iran.
The Iranian top diplomat appreciated the UNHCR contributions for the Afghan refugees, informing Grandi that the offered contributions compared with the volume of Iran’s moves are not even worth mentioning.
“Over 520,000 foreign students are studying in Iran free of charge and the vaccination of Afghan refugees has been proceeding equally with the Iranian citizens," Amirabdollahian said, adding that the capacity for offering services to more Afghan refugees than the existing volume of them by Iran does not exist and the international society must pay special attention to the Afghan people’s living conditions.
He said that the UNHCR’s services to the refugees are praiseworthy, but keeping in mind the volume of the refugees, they are quite insufficient.
Amirabdollahian also said the volume of the crisis of the flow of Afghan refugees towards neighboring countries is quite high, and the volume of international contributions is quite trivial.
Amirabdollahian further asked the commissioner to get more active inside Afghanistan, and offering relief contributions inside that country help to decrease the volume of their seeking refuge outside Afghanistan.
He emphasized that the European countries must pay their fair share in this respect and while the presence of a few thousand refugees by European borders turns into a crisis Iran cannot be expected to assist for good by just speaking kind words.
Amirabdollahian also proposed that the UNHCR should sponsor an international conference on collecting contributions for the Afghan people.
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Grandi, for his part, appreciated Iran’s broad-scale moves in assisting the new Afghan refugees.
He said that Iran’s close attention to vaccinating a high percentage of the Afghans living in Iran and settling down the new wave of refugees that arrive in Iran every day are significant humanitarian moves.
He also welcomed Amirabdollahian's proposal for sponsoring an international conference to collect contributions for the Afghan nation.
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