The caretaker foreign minister defended on Thursday an order that all illegal immigrants, including 1.73 million Afghans, must leave, saying no other country allows illegal immigrants and the decision is in line with international practice.
The order, announced on Tuesday and with a Nov 1 deadline for people to go, has frayed relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, who said the threat to force out Afghan migrants was “unacceptable”.
“No country allows illegal people to live in their country, whether it is Europe, whether it is countries in Asia, in our neighborhood,” the minister in a caretaker Pakistani government, Jalil Abbas Jilani, told Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV in an interview on the sidelines of a forum in Tibet.
📹 [Exclusive] Pakistani FM @JalilJilani: Whenever there was any problem, people will immigrate to Pakistan.
But now, it has been 40 years, and the government of Pakistan has taken a decision, that they should go back to their respective countries. pic.twitter.com/ypXAylPonU
— 鳳凰資訊 PhoenixTV News (@PhoenixTV_News) October 6, 2023
“So, accordingly, this is in line with the international practice that we have taken this decision
