ISLAMABAD - Ahead of the European Union’s crucial talks with the government during this month on the revival of ‘Readmission Treaty’, Pakistan yesterday again refused to accept six migrant deportees brought from the UK and sent them back.
An official of the Federal Investigation Agency told The Nation that six deportees had been brought to the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad, but their citizenship and CNICs (computerized national identity cards) could not be identified, so they were sent back by the same flight.
Pakistan’s refusal to accept migrant deportees from European countries is the cause of escalating tensions between EU and Islamabad, following the govt decision to suspend the readmission treaty with it.
The FIA official said the six deportees were not allowed entry into the country because their travelling documents could not be verified. “We are doing this under the strict instructions of the interior minister as we have been asked that no deportee would be accepted without verification of its Pakistani citizenship,” he said. The Ministry of Interior is set to hold crucial talks with the EU this month to evolve a consensus to revive the agreement signed in 2010 or sign a new agreement with some new terms and conditions.
This is not the first time as Pakistan last week refused to accept 30 migrant deportees brought from three European Union (EU) states, Greece, Bulgaria and Austria, while EU and Ministry of Interior had made contradictory statements in this regard. This happened only a week after the EU commissioner held high-level talks with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali to settle a dispute over forced deportations to Pakistan.
The Ministry of Interior had said these 30 deportees were brought to Pakistan illegally and in violation of international laws. But the European Union delegation rebutted the claim, saying an authorisation of landing was given by the Pakistani authorities for December 3 and Pakistani embassies in the three EU countries had issued them travelling documents.

In a statement, they said it was the duty of Pakistani authorities to verify the CNIC numbers of those illegal migrants who received travel documents from the Pakistani embassies as EU member states do not have access to this internal information.
Some weeks back, Pakistan had suspended readmission (deportation) treaty with the EU, claiming some EU countries were deporting migrants illegally to Pakistan without proper verification of their citizenship from local authorities and in some cases falsely accusing people of their involvement in terrorism.
The interior minister had recently written a letter to the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad while raising concerns over the deportation of a migrant to Pakistan from Canada. He had said that the migrant was deported without verification of his citizenship from Pakistani authorities.
According to a report of the Ministry of Interior, around 97,000 migrants were deported to Pakistan only in 2015.