TEHRAN -- The 9th meeting of the tripartite commission on the joint program for voluntary repatriation between Iran, Afghanistan, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is to open today in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the UNHCR office in Tehran announced in a press release.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees participates in the meetings with a regional team of delegations from the UNHCR in Afghanistan, UNHCR headquarters in Geneva and the UNHCR in Iran, which will be led by representative Sten A. Bronee. The Iranian delegation will be represented by Ahmad Hosseini, the advisor to Iran's interior minister and the director general of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants, while the Afghan delegation is to be led by Naeem Ghiasi, the deputy minister for refugees and returnees.

During the meeting, the parties are expected to assess progress and developments in voluntary repatriation process which started in 2002 and discuss various key issues related to the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees and displaced persons from Iran. They will also be engaged in discussions to plan for the coming year's program based on the return estimates and the analysis of the implementation of last year's program, with the view to enhance the joint program.

The last tripartite commission meeting was hosted by UNHCR at the agency's headquarters in Geneva, following UNHCR's annual executive committee sessions in October. On that occasion, all parties reaffirmed their commitment to the voluntary and gradual character of the repatriation of Afghan refugees and displaced persons from Iran.

The current tripartite agreement, which was signed following high-level negotiations that took place in Herat in June 2005, will expire by the end of the Iranian year 1384 on March 20, 2006. In the year 2005, around 290,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their homeland, of which 64,000 were assisted by the UNHCR office in Iran under the voluntary repatriation program. Since the signing of the first tripartite agreement in 2002, over 1.4 million Afghan refugees have been repatriated to Afghanistan.