Iran has said it has deported millions of illegal migrants and the country would send millions more home because "our top priority is to send them back to their home countries". Iran’s Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said the regime had deported nearly two million undocumented migrants, citing pressures on the economy and social cohesion.

Afghan media reports Mr Momeni said Iran no long had capacity to accommodate the migrants, many of whom are said to have come from Afghanistan. He said: “Iran has hosted millions of migrants for decades due to regional instability, but we are not economically or socially equipped to absorb such a large number.

“Despite having numerous religious, historical, and cultural commonalities with neighboring countries, the country simply has no more capacity for illegal refugees. Our top priority is to send them back to their home countries."

The Tehran Times reports, according to the head of the National Organisation for Migration, Nader Yar-Ahmadi, a total of 6.1 million authorised and unauthorised Afghan nationals are living in the country.

The UN states that the Islamic Republic of Iran is host to "one of the largest and most protracted urban refugee situations in the world and has provided asylum to refugees for over four decades".

It added: "Forty-two years on since the 1979 Soviet invasion and the subsequent waves of violence, displacement from Afghanistan continues in the longest protracted refugee situation covered under UNHCR’s mandate.

"Nearly five million Afghans remain displaced outside of the country; of these, 90% are hosted by the Islamic Republics of Pakistan and Iran."

Elsewhere, Iran’s president said his country will continue talks with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program but will not withdraw from its rights because of what he called US threats.

During a televised speech to the nation today (Saturday), President Masoud Pezeshkian said: “We are negotiating, and we will negotiate , we are not after war but we do not fear any threat.

“It is not like that they think if they threaten us, we will give up our human right and definite right. We will not withdraw, we will not easily loose honorable military, scientific, nuclear in all fields.”

The negotiations have reached the “expert” level, meaning the sides are trying to reach agreement on the details of a possible deal.

But a major sticking point remains Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which Tehran insists it must be allowed to do and the Trump administration increasingly insists the Islamic Republic must give up.