Foreign and Refugee Policies: A comparative Study of Iran and Pakistan For the past four decades Iran and Pakistan have been hosts to the largest Afghan refugee populations. During the first decade, both countries adopted a relatively open-door refugee approach, treating Afghans as their guests. The sign of a change, however, most evident in both countries’ emphasis on mass repatriation, appeared in the early 1990s (see UNHCR statistics, different years). As of now the open-door approach seems to have become a relic of the past. What explain such a shift in policy? Even though domestic political, social, and economic factors play important roles in determining any country’s (Iran and Pakistan, included) approach to refugees, one cannot ignore the impact of foreign policy goals and orientation of a state in setting such policies. The purpose of this comparative study is to investigate the nexus of refugee and foreign policy of Iran and Pakistan. Despite their different international standing/posturing (Iran is a strategically lonely country, shunned by the United States and many powerful regional actors, while Pakistan, a nuclear power, has good working relations with most powerful countries including the US) these two neighbors have certain similar security and foreign policy concerns that have spilled over into their refugee policy. The argument of this paper is that in each case the shift from open to close door refugee policy has a close connection to the foreign policy goals of each country. To make its argument the paper analyses both the foreign policy (particularly security) and refugee discourses of decision makers, and the actual policies of the two countries. Very little scholarly work has been done to analyze the nexus of foreign and refugee policy for either Pakistan or Iran. The purpose of this study is thus twofold. One is to contribute to filling up the above-mentioned gap in our knowledge about the connection between foreign policy and refugee approach in the two countries. The other is to contribute to the process of theory building in refugee studies.