U.N. plans to repatriate 200,000 Afghan refugees

ISLAMABAD, Feb 25 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Friday it aimed to repatriate 200,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan and Iran this year.

It said Pakistan, Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had endorsed the plan at a meeting in Kabul on Wednesday.

The UNHCR would provide logistical support to all those who wanted to return home and assist returnees with shelter and water, the U.N. Coordinator for Afghanistan in Islamabad said.

Pakistan and Iran play host to more than 2.6 million Afghan refugees -- the world's single largest refugee group -- out of more than six million that fled after the 1978 Soviet invasion.

``In the last decade more than 4.2 million have returned home from the two countries,'' the U.N. said in a statement.