Afghanistan Peace CampaignIran is considering releasing hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees across its western borders with Iraq and Turkey. It would be part of what officials describe as a necessarily more offensive and unpredictable strategy in the wake of the bombing of its nuclear sites and the European reimposition of UN sanctions.
The multi-pronged offensive includes expansion of its missile programme, strengthening air defences, suspending cooperation with the UN weapons inspectorate and on 18 October blocking the establishment of a UN committee to oversee the administration of the reimposed sanctions. Officials remain opposed to reopening talks with the US, believing the talks would fail.
The threat to send refugees towards the west as well as the east has echoes of the warning issued by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who threatened to send millions of Syrian refugees towards Europe.
Iran has at times had to accommodate as many as 6 million Afghan refugees, but Amnesty International reports that in 2025 a million Afghan refugees have been sent back to Afghanistan, having fled either due to poverty or Taliban rule. Amnesty claimed the mass expulsions had been scaled up in the wake of Israel’s 12 June attacks on Iran’s leadership and nuclear sites. It estimates 500,000 Afghans have been sent back over the border since June.
Until March 2025, several million Afghans had been permitted to temporarily legalise their stay in Iran by obtaining a “headcount” document. Those granted this document could access limited services, including access to state healthcare, public education, work authorisation, banking and ability to enter into rental agreements. But the authorities nullified these headcount documents.
The Iranian authorities have given different figures about the number of Afghan refugees in the country, but it is thought a minimum of 2 million are in Iran illegally. The UN high commissioner for refugees has predicted that up to 4 million Afghans may be sent back to Afghanistan this year.
A broader programme of repair and recovery is under way in Iran, including a discussion about the levers it retains to protect itself in the wake of the Israeli-US attacks in June. Iran has recalled its ambassadors from France, Germany and the UK for consultations at the foreign ministry in Tehran about the crisis. Officials are leaning against leaving the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, partly since the substantive steps have already been taken to end co-operation with the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate.
Iranian officials confirm that in discussions with the French at the UN general assembly Iran offered to allow weapons inspectors to visit one bombed nuclear site at Natanz and also offered to report on its stockpile of highly enriched uranium within 45 days. In return Iran wanted the threat of the return of UN sanctions to be lifted permanently, rather than for three months, the original French-led offer.
Iran claims the US refused to engage with these proposals, part of what Tehran believes has become an increasingly erratic and unprofessional US diplomatic operation run by Steve Witkoff, a man that the Iranians regard as either outside the loop or duplicitous. Witkoff, for instance, was sending the Iranian delegation heading to the UN details of a meeting he was intending to hold with Iran’s diplomats, but he then scrapped the meeting altogether.
In the next probable diplomatic clash with the US, it is expected that on 18 October Russia, which holds the rotating presidency of the security council, will use its power as a permanent member to block the establishment of a UN committee to monitor and oversee the sanctions the EU reimposed last week.
Russia and China have already written to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to say European countries did not have the right to snap the sanctions back as they did on 28 September, since Europe in their view was no longer a participant in the nuclear deal, and had not exhausted the dispute resolution mechanism.
The impasse makes it likely that some countries will not comply with the enforcement of the UN sanctions. Japan, Canada and Turkey have already started to reimpose the sanctions, but countries in the Russian and Chinese orbit will not do so. The Turkish president, Erdoğan, for instance, issued a presidential decree ordering asset freezes on Iranian individuals and entities linked to Tehran’s nuclear programme and major state banks.
Officials say the most damaging sanctions on Iran are the existing ones imposed by the US, and by comparison the restored UN sanctions dating back from 2006-10 are relatively narrow, since they do not cover Iran’s oil programme but instead specific asset freezes, arms limits and bans on missile trade.
But Tehran accepts that even the partial return of UN sanctions is having an impact on economic confidence and on the exchange rate. The price of the dollar in Iran’s free market has set a new record.