UK delays Iraqi migrants' return

The UN says it is unsafe to send failed asylum seekers back to Iraq

The Home Office has said that the policy to force failed Iraqi asylum seekers to return home may not take place this month, as was hoped.

The United Nations warned last month that "the climate of instability" in Iraq meant plans should be abandoned.

According to the Observer newspaper the Home Office has suspended enforced repatriations amid concerns over continued violence in Iraq.

But the Home Office has denied this and said the plan will still go ahead.

'Practically possible'

A spokeswoman from the Home Office had said to the Observer that the target date would no longer be met.

Security incidents targeting both coalition forces and, increasingly, Iraqis continue with alarming frequency UN memo

But on Sunday the Home Office told BBC News Online that officials do not know who made these comments.

"Failed Iraqi asylum seekers could still be repatriated this month. April was the month we had in mind and it's not the end of April. But we cannot say for definite when the date will now be.

"The repatriation will happen as soon as it is practically possible and this in no way has anything to do with the situation in Iraq. There are some parts of Iraq that have few problems, like the north.

"There are problems with the interested parties in getting these people back to Iraq and will be solved as soon as possible," a spokeswoman said.

'Acts of desperation'

The Home Office has been working with the International Organization for Migration and the interim Iraqi authorities, to return failed asylum seekers who will not be at risk of persecution and do not need humanitarian protection.

But the leaked UN memo, from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and dated 1 March, says "a climate of insecurity continues in Iraq" despite the "timetable for the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty."

There were 4,045 applications for asylum from Iraqis last year

"Security incidents targeting both coalition forces and, increasingly, Iraqis frequently result in death or serious injury," according to the memo leaked to the Observer.

Prime Minister Tony Blair will tell MPs Britain should be prepared for worse violence in Iraq as the planned 30 June handover of power draws closer, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

He will say British and American troops must brace themselves for increasing "acts of desperation" in the run-up to the deadline, said the paper.

Pilot project

The Home Office announced in February the UK would become the first European country to begin the enforced returns of failed asylum seekers.

A pilot project was to send an initial 30% of failed Iraqi asylum seekers back home, but the move faced criticism from the UNHCR when it was first announced.

The new developments come ahead of fresh concessions over Home Secretary David Blunkett's crackdown on asylum seekers.

Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer suggested the government had listened to criticisms over plans to scrap the right of appeal against deportation orders after the moves were branded "unconstitutional" by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf.

Lord Falconer will this week announce appeals will stay but time limits will be brought in, the Observer said.