Pakistan’s interim prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, has said that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) advised Pakistan to “look inwards” to address the security problem and Islamabad took notice of this and started deporting illegal refugees.

In an op-ed published in The Telegraph late Sunday, Kakar said that since August 2021, at least 16 Afghan nationals have carried out suicide attacks inside Pakistan, while 65 terrorists killed in encounters with security forces, mainly in the bordering region, were identified as Afghans.

“No responsible government can ignore such concerns. Whenever we raised this with the interim Afghan government, they advised us to ‘look inwards’. We have finally decided to heed to their advice to put our house in order,” Kakar said.

He said that over the last three to four decades, “between four and five million migrants (roughly the population of Ireland)” had arrived in Pakistan.

“Many have no right to remain. Despite being a non-signatory to 1951 Convention on Refugees (and its 1967 Protocol), we have generously accommodated the single largest caseload of refugees.

“Hospitality is in Pakistan’s DNA which is why we have, and will continue to fulfill our legal, moral and humanitarian obligations,” he said.

According to Kakar, despite frequent opportunities to repatriate voluntarily, and multiple government attempts to register those who remain undocumented, “a significant number has persistently refused to formalize their status, choosing instead to stay in the shadows.”

He further said that while Pakistan had benefited from “hard-working and law-abiding migrants”, the socio-economic and security cost of the influx had been “staggering.”

Kakar said that hundreds of thousands of Afghan nationals crossed the border after the abrupt withdrawal of the West from Afghanistan.

“Unfortunately, only 59,033 of the new arrivals have been resettled outside Pakistan, while 42,068 await evacuation to the west. The rest have failed to put forward a convincing case to anyone for asylum, and continue to stay in Pakistan illegally,” he said.

He said that Pakistan today stood at the crossroads of history.

“We can no longer continue to compromise our national security by accommodating such huge numbers of undocumented individuals. Our ultimate aim is to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous Pakistan — with associated benefits for our own people, for the region, and the wider world,” Kakar concluded.

IEA has previously said that it is not responsible for the security of Pakistan and refugees are not involved in attacks in the country.