By Rosmalis Anuar
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 12 (NNN-Bernama) — Iran is grappling with the influx of refugees from Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August, with hundreds of thousands more expected to arrive in the coming winter.
Calling for greater support from the international community, Iran’s Ambassador to Malaysia Ali Asghar Mohammadi said thousands of Afghan refugees in the neighbouring countries, including Iran, are in dire need of humanitarian assistance – particularly food, clothing and medicine.
“We are in a very difficult situation. The international community should come to help us because in the past four decades, despite having so much pressure due to the (economic) sanctions, we housed more than 3 million Afghan refugees.
“We are subsidising the Afghan people. We have more than 500,000 Afghan students studying in Iran, and more than 25,000 of them are in the universities,” he said during a roundtable discussion with the Malaysian media, here, recently.
According to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Wednesday, as many as 300,000 Afghans have crossed into Iran since August, with 4,000 to 5,000 of them crossing the border daily.
Mohammadi also welcomed Malaysian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to collaborate with Iran in channelling humanitarian assistance to refugees from Afghanistan.
He said Iran is ready to provide facilities, knowledge, information and intelligence to Malaysian NGOs.
“We managed to bring back a Malaysian medical group stuck in Afghanistan before. This week, we are going to have another group going to Afghanistan through Iran. We provided the facility and issued visas for them.
“For Afghanistan, this is an issue, and would be an issue for quite some time in the future. We need to work together; I know that Malaysians and the NGOs are very much interested to help the Afghans, like in the Palestine issue,” he said.
On the Taliban government, he emphasised that Iran has been consistent with its stand that the fate of the Afghan people has to be determined by its people and the government established based on their will.
Mohammadi said Iran also called for the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan that secures the rights of all ethnics and religions.
“Taliban is now responsible for whatever happens in Afghanistan, the safety, security and the economy. They are asking for recognition, but recognition should come after they proved that the government is inclusive and they are able to manage their country in a proper way,” he said.
On the Palestine-Israel conflict, Mohammadi said supporting the Palestinian cause is one of the most valuable principles of Iran’s foreign policy.
He stressed that it is the duty and responsibility of the Islamic nations to support the Palestinian peoples’ struggle for liberation and the formation of an independent state, calling on Islamic countries that normalised ties with Israel to review their policies.
“How can we recognise the situation that is happening everyday in the West Bank, in Gaza? Our position remains; we are not going to change our policy,” he said.
— NNN-BERNAMA
