TEHRAN -- Iran said on Tuesday it plans to set up 16 camps along its borders with Iraq to shelter refugees fleeing from a possible war there, but vowed not to let them enter the country, Reuters quoted Iranian radio as saying.

Iran says it opposes any U.S. attack on Iraq and is watching with extreme unease the situation across its western border amid a U.S. drive for tough new terms on the return of UN arms inspectors to Iraq, including a threat of force, IRNA reported.

"We are ready to establish 16 camps along our borders with Iraq, but the refugees would not be allowed to enter the cities," the radio quoted a senior Interior Ministry official as saying.

Iran's proposed refugee policy mirrors the one it adopted during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan last year when it set up a pair of camps just inside Afghan territory to accommodate people fleeing the fighting there.

While each camp eventually held around 5,000 people, Iran did not see the large exodus many aid agencies had predicted.

Iran already hosts some two million Afghan refugees as well as several thousand Iraqis displaced during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.