By Pam O'Toole BBC regional analyst

The United Nations says the number of Afghan refugees going home from Pakistan under a voluntary return programme has declined over recent weeks.

Its refugee agency, the UNHCR, says it now appears likely that the returns have peaked and that numbers will continue to decline over the coming months.

It's an enormous number of people who've gone back - far beyond anyone's expectations

Peter Kessler UNHCR spokesman

Pakistan has provided the bulk of the 1.4 million returnees to Afghanistan so far but it and Iran still play host to about 2.4 million Afghan refugees.

The Afghan return programme has been the largest and fastest the UNHCR has seen in several decades, surpassing the return of the Iraqi Kurds in 1991.

Pakistan is keen to see the million or so Afghan refugees it still shelters return home as soon as possible.

In the past, the UNHCR has expressed concern about forcible returns both from Pakistan and Iran.

'Beyond expectations'

A UNHCR spokesman, Peter Kessler, says the agency hopes Islamabad will take a positive view of the current situation.

"We hope the Pakistanis will realise that, as they agreed with us earlier this year, only some 400,000 people will go back," he said.

"We've now seen that [original] number more than tripled.

"It's an enormous number of people who've gone back - far beyond anyone's expectations so clearly everybody should be very pleased."

Mr Kessler urged governments to redouble their efforts to ensure that the new Afghan government had the aid it needed and to fund development projects to "anchor" returnees back in their home country.

Trickle from Iran

Returns from Iran have continued to be slow.

Refugees there are not only further away from their home areas, but are more integrated into the community with better access to employment education and health care.

Only 116,000 Afghans have returned from Iran under UN programmes so far.

That is less than a tenth of the number who have returned from Pakistan.