Afghanistan seeks end to deportations

Afghanistan urged Iran on Thursday to stop deporting its citizens during the winter months, saying doing so could cause a humanitarian disaster.

Iran has said it plans to deport all of the nearly 1.5 million illegal Afghan migrants it says are living in the country. It says many of the migrants are there for economic reasons.

Iran is also trying to persuade the some 910,000 registered refugees from Afghanistan to return home.

Many of the migrants have no homes in Afghanistan and could be forced to live outside on their return.

On Wednesday, some 220 men were deported, said Shamsudin Ahmed, an Afghan government official in western Herat province, which borders Iran. Iran often deports small batches of illegal Afghan migrants, but these were the first of 2008.

The deportations provoked an unusually strong response from Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry, which has been criticized by lawmakers for not doing enough to protect the rights of Afghans in neighboring countries.

"The continued deportation of Afghan refugees from Iran will cause a humanitarian disaster and big problems during this cold weather," Foreign Minister Spokesman Sultan Baheen said at a news conference in Kabul, adding that heavy snowfall and cold had claimed several casualties in recent days.

"This action goes against the friendship of both countries and is worrying the Afghan people and its government," Baheen said.

In the mid-1990s, after years of war, Afghans constituted the world's largest refugee population, with 8 million people scattered in more than 70 countries across the globe. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, millions have returned home, though some 2 million still live in neighboring Pakistan.

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Associated Press reporter Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this report.