"From the 1.35 million Afghans about 900 thousand are refugees, and 450 thousand are passport holders; there are a number of illegal ones, whose number is not known," Deputy Director of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs, Mohammad Ali Salehi Najafabadi said.
He pointed to Afghanistan as part of the Muslim World and an important neighbor of Iran, , and said, "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has ordered that all the Afghan children in Iran should be allowed to education like the Iranians."
Salehi Najafabadi also said that the safer Iran's neighbor, the better for Iran, and added Iran is trying to raise a dynamic generation of Afghans to be able to return to their country.
He said once there were about 450 thousand Iraqi refugees in Iran, but after the return of security to Iraq, most of them went back to their country, adding, "There are about 40 thousand Iraqis in Iran now."
In relevant remarks in July 2014, a senior expert of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) praised Iran's hospitality to foreign refugees, specially the Afghans.
"The hospitality of the Iranian nation and government to the foreign nationals is unique in comparison with other countries," Mansour Morteza-Pour said.
He noted that the Iranian government has provided foreign refugees with praiseworthy services in the past 30 years.
Iran has been a generous host for more than 2 million Afghan refugees for two decades, with little help from the international community.
Tehran has called on the international community to strengthen support for Iran for hosting the Afghan refugees and provide repatriation support for the refugees.
Voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran has slowed in recent years in the face of poor security and economic conditions in Afghanistan, which Tehran blames on the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
The office of the UNHCR was established by the UN General Assembly in 1950.
According to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the agency is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees.
UNHCR first opened an office in Iran in 1984 and expanded its presence with the massive influx of Iraqi refugees following the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the start of Afghans' mass return movement to Afghanistan in 1992.
Today UNHCR has its Central representative office in Tehran, plus three sub offices in Mashhad, Kerman and Ahwaz.