Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular, Parliamentary and Expatriate Affairs Hassan Qashqavi says 251 Afghan prisoners held in Iran will be sent to their homeland in the coming weeks.
The Afghans will be repatriated following efforts by the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry's Directorate General for International Cooperation, and within the framework of an agreement on the extradition of prisoners, he said on Monday.
Twenty-one Iranians sentenced in Afghanistan were sent home on Sunday, Tasnim News Agency reported.
The official added that two other Iranian convicts will be transferred to the country from Afghanistan in the coming days.
It was not clear for what crime the Afghans and Iranians were serving time in the two countries. Afghanistan is known as the opium capital of the world and Iran the gateway through which much of the Afghan illegal drug passes.
Back in March, high-ranking officials from Iran and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding to promote consular cooperation.
The cooperation agreement was inked during the third Tehran-Kabul consular cooperation meeting in the Afghan capital on March 8, attended by Qashqavi and the Afghan Ambassador in Tehran Nasir Ahmad Nour.
In that session the two sides also signed three documents to exchange and extradite prisoners.
