Europe has hosted an important population of Iraqi exiles since the 1980s with the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War. In particular, the Iraqi diaspora has had a strong presence in the UK, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands (which has hosted refugees since the 1991 Gulf War). Nevertheless, Europe's performance in addressing the refugee crisis that resulted from the US-led invasion of Iraq has been widely criticized by the UNHCR, which denounced the small number of asylum applicants accepted by the EU.