Kabul, Afghanistan ? The United Nations is preparing for up to 600,000 Iraqi refugees if war breaks out, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday.

“UNHCR cannot exclude that it comes to a military intervention, and of course we are prepared for that,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers told reporters in the Afghan capital.

Lubbers said UNHCR was planning for between 500,000 and 600,000 refugees. He said last month most refugees would likely head for Iran and Turkey, and a smaller amount would probably flee to Syria and Jordan. He also said an Iraqi refugee crisis could cost the international community $60 million in its first week alone.

“For that, of course we need international support,” Lubbers said, adding that most donors were reluctant to give aid before war actually begins.

The agency has said support of donor countries would be important in ensuring that food, medicine and shelter supplies are stockpiled ahead of a possible war.

“We’ve prepared an emergency stock, limited, because our funds are very limited,” Lubbers said, giving no other details.

“In Iraq, the first priority for the world — and in particular the U.N. — is to prevent a military intervention by delivering the ending of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by peaceful means,” he said.

Lubbers spoke on the last day of a six-day visit to Afghanistan in which he also appealed for donor funding for a new repatriation program expected to help an estimated 1.2 million Afghan refugees return home this year.

He said the program would cost $195 million, but donors had only provided about $16 million so far.