‘Iran won’t accept forced deportees from Australia’

TEHRAN: Iran is not willing to accept its nationals being forcibly deported from Australia but will welcome back citizens of their own free will, a top official warned on Sunday.
The remarks by deputy foreign minister Hassan Ghashgavi came as Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Tehran but failed to make a breakthrough on a long-running immigration dispute.
Ghashgavi, whose brief covers consular affairs, signalled the two countries are widely at odds and he even launched a thinly veiled dig at foreign states who send people back to their place of origin.
”Any forced deportation is contrary to human rights, but we believe that the voluntary return of every Iranian to his country is not a problem,” the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.
”All immigration countries make a selection. They welcome those they consider useful to their society... and reject others to be forcibly deported.”
Iranians make up 23 percent of 1,848 people held in immigration detention centres in Australia, according to official figures from late March.
Under a hardline policy, asylum-seekers arriving by boat in Australia are subject to mandatory detention, and since 2013 have been denied resettlement even if found to be genuine refugees.
Iranians account for many of the 1,707 held on the Pacific island outposts of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, some of whom are still awaiting the final assessment of their claims for refugee status.
Bishop, who is due to leave Sunday capping a two-day trip to Iran, was the highest-ranking Australian to visit in 12 years.
New-York-based Human Rights Watch had urged Bishop to “press Iranian officials to address the violations that compel people to flee Iran and to seek protection elsewhere.”