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Pakistan has repeatedly said it expects them to have left by the end of 2012 but with no end in sight to the bitter conflict ravaging AfghanistanUN officials are in Islamabad this week to find a deal.

An international conference has been called for May to present a new long-term strategy amid concerns that a decade of misguided policy has failed to help families returning home.

At the same time, Pakistani ministers have expressed concern at the economic and social burden they have been expected to bear and are agitating for speedier returns.

António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, on Wednesday told The Daily Telegraph the group was in talks with the Pakistan government to ensure refugees could stay beyond 2012 and to speed up programmes of voluntary repatriation.

“What matters now is what is guaranteed and what is guaranteed is that there won’t be any policy of involuntary expulsion of refugees,” he said.

“And we have agreed with them to do our best to enhance the programme of voluntary repatriation.” Afghans have sought safety in Pakistan ever since the Soviet invasion in 1979.

Pakistan hosts the world’s biggest population of refugees. Some 1.7 million are registered as refugees with thousands more living under the radar.

However, Pakistan’s weak economic record and widespread armed insurgencies have meant Afghans have regularly been made scapegoats for the country’s ills.

Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, has repeatedly accused the refugee population of being a source of terrorism.

With the conflict in Afghanistan showing no signs of easing and with international forces withdrawing in 2014, the numbers of refugees returning are on the wane.

In December, the UNHCR’s Afghanistan representative admitted that its strategy in the war-wracked country was “the biggest mistake UNHCR ever made”.

“It was concentrated on support to families returning,” said Mr Guterres.

“And this was not the most important factor. The most important factor was whether the conditions on the ground were there to be sustainable and successful.” He said a new policy – concentrating on giving support to communities to which families where returning – had been agreed with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and would be presented to donors in May.

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Source: Telegraph