Concerns Rise Over Growing Afghan Population In Iran
The rising number of Afghans in Iran is causing a divide among officials unsure whether the presence poses a threat or an opportunity for the regime.
The rising number of Afghans in Iran is causing a divide among officials unsure whether the presence poses a threat or an opportunity for the regime.
In recent weeks, videos of large numbers of Afghans passing Iran’s eastern borders have surfaced, adding to speculation about the authorities’ intent to increase the populations of immigrants from Afghanistan in a bid to boost the shrinking population and bolster regime support via an elaborate incentive scheme.
There are multiple estimates regarding the size of the Afghan diaspora population in Iran, but precise numbers are scarce due to Afghans' reluctance to participate in official counts and registrations, stemming from concerns about potential deportation and other repercussions. Most are economic migrants, hoping to earn money to send back to families in Afghanistan in a collapsing economy, while filling jobs once done by the huge swathes of Iranians fleeing the regime.
On Wednesday, lawmaker Mohsen Pirhadi stated, "The matter of Afghan migration to Iran should not be exclusively seen through a negative or problematic lens, nor should it be regarded as an undesirable social phenomenon."
A monthly magazine in Tehran recently published an article suggesting that Afghan migrants are considering running for seats in the Iranian parliament. The magazine argued that "given their growing population, Afghans believe they should be entitled to a share of rights and privileges in this country."
Recently, Iran's education minister made an unsupported claim that 600,000 “foreign” students are enrolled in Iranian schools. Iranian authorities and some media usually refer to Afghan immigrants and refugees as “foreign nationals.” Rezamorad Sahraei’s remarks have triggered various speculations about the Afghan population, ranging between five and 15 million.
Another statistic causing concern among Iranians is the illegal arrival of approximately 10,000 Afghans to the country per day. Earlier this month, the conservative Jomhuri Eslami newspaper reported that unofficial statistics indicate that last fall out of 300 babies born at the hospital of Kavar, a small town near Shiraz, capital of southern Fars province, 297 belonged to Afghan families. “Security officials must be concerned that the presence of so many foreign nationals will entail many threats [to national security],” Jomhuri Eslami wrote. The media outlet stated that the population of Afghans in Iran is eight million.
According to the latest figures communicated by the Government of Iran to the UN's refugee commission (UNHCR), 762,000 refugees live in Iran, of which 750,000 are Afghans and 12,000 are Iraqis. Around 586,000 Afghan passport holders with Iranian visas also live in Iran. The UNHCR claims that in 2022, the government of Iran undertook a headcount of all undocumented Afghan nationals in the country, including those who newly arrived following the Taliban takeover in 2021, through which some 2.6 million Afghans were registered. According to official figures from Iran, at least 500,000 undocumented Afghans did not participate in the headcount.
In April 2021, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said one million more Afghans had entered Iran since the Taliban took power in August the previous year, bringing Iran’s official number of refugees and economic migrants to five million.
In a commentary in July, Aftab News, a website close to former President Hassan Rouhani and the moderate conservative Moderation and Development Party, warned that “the massive increase in the number of Afghans” is the result of authorities' active policy to encourage the growth of the Afghan population including allowing them the right to buy property and access to services such as education and healthcare.
Aftab News alleged that factors such as a lack of control at eastern borders of the country, issuing thousands of tourist visas daily when applicants do not intend to return to their home country, automatic renewal of tourist, pilgrimage and other types of visas, elimination or reduction of cash fines for illegal entry and stay, indicate “targeted planning” by the authorities.
Reformist website Ensaf News has published several reports about the Afghan colonies in Iran during the past few months, revealing details about their lives in southern Tehran. The website quoted journalist Hadi Kasaizadeh as saying, "These individuals have their own judges, prosecutors, and investigators; when an Afghan commits a crime, they try and punish them within their own system.” He specifically studied a colony of Afghans in Kahrizak district, in the south of Tehran province, relating the stories of how about 15 to 30 Afghans rent an apartment there and live as a commune. "If Afghans residing in Iran decide to revolt, our work is done," Kasaizadeh claims.
Several hardline media, including those affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, openly promote acceptance of more Afghans in Iran to increase the country’s population as a solution to the falling birth rate among Iranians and the rising trend of emigration in society. Iran's population growth rate has dropped to around 0.7 percent in the past few years, while the zeitgeist of the country points to a mass migration of Iranian elites due to the suppression of dissent and neglect of young Iranians' demands.
A deputy of the Iranian president’s special representative for Afghanistan rejected reports of lax enforcement of border security earlier this week, denying claims the country plans to increase the number of Afghan refugees. Meysam Mehdipour also called for coordination among different relevant bodies to decide whether the issue is “a threat or an opportunity.”
Iranian officials are divided about how to deal with the growing population of illegal Afghan immigrants. Iranian lawmaker Hassan Hemmati, a member of the National Security Committee of the parliament, warned of the possible rise of crime and worsening unemployment unless there is a control over the issue. He argued that as so many are not registered, it is more difficult to pursue them if they engage in criminal activities.
“I am opposed to the entry of unauthorized foreigners into the country, and this issue is more commonly discussed in relation to unauthorized Afghan nationals," he said, noting that a significant number of Afghans entered Iran illegally, especially after the rise of the Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan. Hemmati said that the “presence of unauthorized foreigners could potentially pose significant problems for our country, such as the alteration of the [social] fabric and identity of regions.”
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has repeatedly stressed that the country’s population should rise to at least 150 million, presumably to strengthen the Shiite-ruled Muslim state. The Islamic Republic may eye accepting more Afghan Hazaras who are Shiites like Iranians, but if more Sunnis come to Iran, their population may sway the absolute majority of Shiites in the country, where Sunni Muslims constitute approximately 10 percent of its nearly 88-million population. Hazaras make up the biggest ethnic group among Afghan immigrants to Iran followed by Sunni Tajiks, Pashtuns and Uzbeks.
The hardline ruthless fundamentalism has consistently simmered beneath the surface, irrespective of the government in charge of foreign policy, whether ultraconservative like the Ahmadinejad and Raisi administrations or more pragmatic like former President Hassan Rouhani, former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani, and former Nuclear Chief who, at times, guided Tehran's nuclear policy.
Until recently, Iran's current Chief Nuclear Negotiator, Al Bagheri-Kani, a protégé of former hardliner chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, was believed to oppose any rapprochement with the United States and the West over the nuclear issue. His behavior, including avoiding the press, reinforced this perception.
When for the first time Bagheri defended the negotiations with the West as a means of securing “national interests" in early September, many of the same observers did not believe him. Pundits in Iran had been constantly criticizing the government for appointing Bagheri as the man in charge of the nuclear talks and linked him to Jalili whose sinister remarks about the negotiations have continued here and there although officially, he has nothing to do with the matter. Many Iranian politicians and military commanders often pass naïve and sometimes funny judgement on the nuclear case and Jalili is no exception.
Bagheri, however, has been mysteriously silent about his mission since 2021. His early September comments in which he levelled criticism at opponents of negotiations, accusing them of stripping the regime of a vital and crucial “instrument for securing national interests,” came at a time when Iranian moderate politicians and foreign policy analysts began to call for a milder approach in the nuclear issue, insisting that an agreement with the United States could help Tehran to improve its problematic economic situation.
This shift in Bagheri's stance was seen as "a new Bagheri-Kani" by Khabar-Online website in Tehran, which praised him for criticizing hardliners who portrayed negotiations as an anti-revolutionary trend while disguising their opposition to the negotiations as defending revolutionary values.
The website praised Bagheri as a man who has tried many ways to resolve the dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear program.
Khabar Online's in a new article on September 24 made another attempt to portray Bagheri as a new moderate voice among an army of hardliners. The headline of the report is self-explanatory: "Ali Bagheri encircled by those who wish to benefit from sanctions." The report characterized Bagheri's new approach as "realistic and unprecedented" and asked whether Raisi can put an end to the negotiation-resistance bipolar.
However, Khabar Online reminded that two weeks after Bagheri voiced his new idea about how to further the nuclear talks, President Ebrahim Raisi had not yet reacted to the hardliner advocating sanctions as a blessing for Iran. Khabar Online further assessed Bagheri's idea as an honest attempt to secure Iran's national interests regardless of his political affiliation.
While hardliners in Iran and the United States have been calling for tougher stances in recent weeks, and there were indications that Washington was softening at least part of its view toward Tehran by facilitating Iran's access to some of its frozen assets, there is still no tangible indication of further rapprochement.
Although Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has been optimistic about Oman's attempt to restart indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States, there has been no news from Washington or Muscat on that matter. In Washington, it takes some time for the administration to show any inclination toward an agreement with Tehran after facing opposition to its attempts to appease Iran.
Al-Ansari stressed Doha's openness to hosting any direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran on the Iranian nuclear file, in the next few weeks.
He elaborated that “After the recent agreement between the two countries, which was concluded with Qatari mediation (the release of American prisoners and the lifting of the freeze on Iranian funds in South Korea), international interest in the Iranian file increased, and the possibility of reaching new understandings about it that would ease tension in the region."
Western and Iranian media have been reporting secret indirect talks in recent months that aim to de-escalate tensions, with Iran slowing down its nuclear program in return for financial rewards by Washington, including lax sanctions enforcement.
Qatar is among the nations to step forward and offer to be the intermediary in talks to revive the nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, including Oman and according to Iran, also Japan.
However, the US has denied the claims, even suggesting that Iran is far from ready to come to the diplomatic table. During Tuesday's State Department press briefing, spokesman Matthew Miller said Iran must take de-escalatory steps if it wants to reduce tensions and create a space for diplomacy.
“We have not yet seen indications, despite some of these public comments, that Iran is serious about addressing the concerns that we have, the concerns that other countries have about its nuclear program,” Miller told reporters.
Referring to the decision this month to ban one third of the Atomic Energy Agency Inspectors from Iran, Miller said the regime is only undermining the IAEA’s ability to do its work.
“If Iran really is serious about taking de-escalatory steps, the first thing it could do would be to cooperate with the IAEA. We have not seen them fully do that,” he said.
On the topic of direct talks, Miller remained tight-lipped, saying that while the US is open to diplomacy, he was unwilling to talk about how that would transpire. It would first of all, be conditional on Iran’s taking de-escalatory steps such as allowing all necessary access to the IAEA’s team.
“I could give you a long list of things we would like Iran to take in terms of changed behavior, but I’m speaking specifically with respect to the nuclear program right now,” he said on Tuesday in Washington.
Iran's foreign ministry Tuesday dismissed reports suggesting direct negotiations with the United States over sanctions relief have been given the green light by the Supreme Leader.
A website in the UK had earlier claimed that Iran was planning to engage in direct talks with the US in Oman concerning its nuclear program, given the go-ahead by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
The Qatari foreign minister’s statement is questionable at best, not backed up by anything substantial from either the US or even Iran, which is always only too happy to portray itself as the pillar of diplomacy, as was seen most recently at the UN where President Ebrahim Raisi even denied the country’s nuclear ambitions in spite of plentiful evidence otherwise.
It perhaps suggests the nation which is now managing Iran’s $6bn freed up from South Korea as a result of a prisoner swap deal this month which saw five wrongfully imprisoned American-Iranians exchanged for five regime agents, is once again trying to position itself as the region’s ‘peacemaker’.
Qatar has a history of engaging with terror groups in the name of diplomacy, hosting both the Taliban and Hamas, while claiming to be acting as mediator. During the four-year blockade of Qatar by the Persian Gulf states, Qatar grew closer to Iran, and the two nations share the world’s largest gas field. During the recent World Cup 2022, dissidents were harassed in Qatar by regime agents openly operating on Qatari soil.
Meanwhile, as the expiration of the United Nations’ sanctions on Iran approaches next month, a bipartisan group of senators have written a joint letter asking the governments of the UK, France and Germany, known as the E3, to prevent the sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile program’s expiration.
The letter, addressed to the ambassadors of the three nations, signed by 31 lawmakers including members of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, thanked them for deciding to maintain their own sanctions beyond the deal’s expiry in October, but calling on them to help prevent the collapse of the sanctions.