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LONDON: The UK considered sending asylum-seekers to Iraq for processing, new documents have shown.

Iraq is considered very dangerous, with the UK government advising against all travel to the country.

But a plan similar to the Rwanda scheme to process migrants in a third-party country was floated at one stage by Whitehall officials, with negotiations said to have achieved “good recent progress.”

The UK has struck a returns agreement with Baghdad for Iraqi citizens, which was achieved without a formal announcement or acknowledgement and a plea for “discretion,” the documents, seen by Sky News, suggest.

The cache of papers casts new light on the UK government’s approach to dealing with asylum-seekers and illegal migration, including a desire to improve relations with the Iranian Embassy in London in order to ease the repatriation of Iranian citizens, and moves to establish return agreements with Eritrea and Ethiopia.