Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has announced that if foreign countries do not accept Afghan refugees as originally promised, Pakistan will be forced to send them back to Afghanistan.

Speaking in an interview with TRT World, Dar said that many countries had announced that they would accept Afghan refugees currently living in Pakistan. He added that the matter had a tentative completion date of September this year.

However, he added that the government was examining the issue of the refusal of the Donald Trump administration to accept any more refugees.

“In that case, they will be classified as illegal immigrants,” Dar said. “We might be forced to send such refugees back to their original country, which is Afghanistan.”

He added that Pakistan has a common culture and history with its neighbouring country and wants an improvement in the destitute condition of Afghanistan’s people. He added that Afghanistan is a landlocked country and Pakistan has been and will continue to provide assistance to it.

“We are well-wishers of Afghanistan, we want them to prosper,” Dar added.

However, Dar added that Pakistan needs an assurance from Afghanistan that its soil will not be allowed to be used by terrorists. He added that a large part of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has been residing in Pakistan and Afghanistan’s border region.

“Pakistan would retaliate to any attack no matter of which country and you’ve seen that we have reacted twice in the neighbouring countries (when) we were forced to and no country should allow its soil to be used for terrorism activities,” he said.