TEHRAN, Jan. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Monday rejected an allegation by UN refugee officials that Tehran had been forcing Afghan refugees to go home, saying the claim was based on "improper information," the official IRNA news agency reported.

    "Tehran was making a distinction between legal refugees and those who had crossed into the country illegally," Ahmad Hosseini,advisor to the interior minister and managing director of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs, was quoted assaying.

    "The Islamic Republic of Iran has no hesitation to confront illegal entry of Afghans and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has no right to interfere in Iran's internal affairs,"Hosseini said.

    Hosseini said the repatriation had been suspended for three months due to a cold season and school time.

    "If the establishments of the UNHCR and 11 centers for voluntary repatriation of the Afghans in Iran can not lead to a precise andreal report on return of refugees, it seems the Interior Ministry should review the operation of this organization in Iran," Hosseini said.

    One UN refugee official has recently been quoted by some mediaas saying that the Iranian authorities had gone too far in the repatriation process, threatening to suspend aid for Afghan refugees in Iran.

    Iran has been home to 2.35 million Afghan refugees over the past 25 years. They were made refugees by former Soviet Union's invasion of the central Asian country in 1979 and civil wars in the 1990s.Some 1.3 million Afghans have so far returned home under a voluntary repatriation, which is carried out by the Iranian government and the UNHCR under a deal signed in Geneva in 2002.Enditem