By NNN-KUNA
Baghdad : Visiting UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres said here Saturday UNHCR was seeking to carry out a voluntary repatriation of Iraqi refugees.
Guterres was speaking during a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Guterres is here as part of a regional tour aiming to get acquainted with the conditions of Iraqi refugees.
He added that the next core task of the commissioner would be here in Iraq in collaboration with the Ministry of Immigration and within the framework of the UN.
The United Nations will boost its staff working on Iraq’s refugee crisis and will place a new representative in Baghdad to address the issue, Guterres said.
“We are here because we are deeply committed to do more and to do better,” Guterres told the joint news conference.
The new representative “will be in Baghdad and no longer in Amman as it has been the case. We believe it is here that the essential work needs to be done, ” he said.
The UNHCR estimates two million Iraqis have fled their war-ravaged country, many to neighbouring Syria and Jordan. Another 2.4 million are thought to be displaced from their homes but living inside the country, either because of Saddam Hussein’s actions during his rule or because of the war.
“There is never a humanitarian solution to a humanitarian problem,” Guterres said. “The plight of Iraqi refugees will end with national reconciliation and with their effective reintegration in the country and their contribution to the reconstruction of the country.”
For his part, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he had discussed with the UN refugee commissioner a new joint assessment of the situation in Iraq, saying that several Iraqi areas had now become secure.
The Iraqi government has pledged USD 25 million in emergency aid to Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria, he said.
Zebari said that, with decreasing violence in many areas of the nation over the past year, some internally displaced placed people have been moving back to their neighborhoods.
A recent Interior Ministry assessment found “nearly 4,000 families that have gone back to their homes willingly,” he said.
Zebari and Guterres said that much more needs to be done. The two sides said that they would begin talking about how to assess when conditions are right for a more substantial return of refugees.