ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Thursday it was on course to meet a Nov. 1 deadline for all illegal foreigners, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans, to leave the country or face forcible expulsion.

Some 1.73 million Afghans in Pakistan have no legal documents, according to Pakistan’s interior ministry, which says Afghan nationals have carried out over a dozen suicide bombings this year. Pakistan has hosted the largest number of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979.

Islamabad says the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan totaled 4.4 million.

Some 20,000 or more Afghans who fled the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan are in Pakistan awaiting the processing of their applications for US Special Immigration Visas (SIVs) or resettlement in the United States as refugees.

“The government’s position is very clear, the position of the government of Pakistan is that the deadline for voluntary return of illegal foreigners to their home countries is 31st of October and from the 1st of November, the repatriation plan kicks in as per Pakistani laws,” the foreign office spokesperson said during a weekly briefing.

Pakistan says the deportation process would be orderly and conducted in phases and could begin with people with criminal records.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have said Pakistan’s threat to force out Afghan migrants was unacceptable.”

Relations have deteriorated between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past couple of years, largely over accusations that militants fighting the Pakistani state operate from Afghan territory. The Taliban deny this claim.

A group of former top US officials and resettlement organizations have urged Pakistan to exempt from deportation to Afghanistan thousands of Afghan applicants for special US visas or refugee relocation to the United States.