PESHAWAR: Registered Afghan nationals are likely to be allowed to stay in Pakistan till December 2017.

According to official sources, the Ministry of State and Frontier Region (Safron) put up a summary to the prime minister secretariat a few days ago proposing that Afghans having Proof of Registration (PoR) cards be given another year to stay in the country.

If the federal cabinet approves the summary, this will be the fourth extension given to the refugees.

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It is up to the federal cabinet to approve or reject the summary,” said an official who did not want to be named because he is not authorised to give statement to the media on the subject.

He said that during a meeting of the tripartite commission held in Kabul in August last year, the Afghan government had sought three-year extension for registered refugees. The commission comprising Pakistan, Afghani-stan and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had discussed a draft plan for repatriation of refugees.

Federal government had issued PoR cards to 1.6 million Afghans. The cards renewed last year will expire on December 31.

The stay of registered and unregistered Afghans for a large period was discussed at a recent meeting of Corps Commanders. Return of Afghans, particularly those not registered, was listed in the National Action Plan.

The government had decided to expel all unregistered Afghans after the massacre at the Army Public School and College, Peshawar, in December 2014. Implementation of the decision was put on hold because the federal and provincial governments could not work out a mechanism for the repatriation of illegal Afghans.

“We know nothing about compulsions of the federal government for its lenient policy despite the fact the establishment and provincial governments also wanted to resolve the refugees’ issue,” said a senior official.

“This may be the last extension for registered Afghans,” he said. If the cabinet approved the extension plan, sources said, the government, instead of renewing the PoR cards, would issue a notification to the quarters concerned to consider the document valid till December 2017.

The Afghan government and UNHCR are against forcible repatriation of registered refugees and have asked Islamabad to let them return to their country through the voluntary repatriation programme.

The voluntary repatriation programme, sponsored by the UN refugee agency, is moving at a slow pace. Only 57,000 of about 1.5 million registered Afghans have gone back to their country under the programme since January 2015.

On the other hand, the government is yet to frame a policy for the return of approximately two million undocumented Afghan nationals who have been living in different areas of the country, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, without legal status.

The sources said that Safron’s plan to register undocumented Afghan nationals was put on the back burner after the interior ministry opposed registration of undocumented Afghans for one year and said that was not the mandate of Safron.

The ministry had allocated Rs 74 million for registration of around one million illegal Afghans and assigned the task to National Database and Registration Authority.

Nadra in collaboration with the Commissionerate for refugees had identified a total of 11 registration points in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2015