Turkey’s president on Monday said his country will no longer shoulder the burden of caring for refugees on its own.
“THE NUMBER WILL SOON REACH A MILLION”
“The era of one-sided sacrifices is now over,” President Erdoğan told a meeting of his Justice and Development (AK) Party in the capital Ankara. “Since Turkey opened borders, more than 100,000 migrants have left for Europe, this number will soon reach a million,” said Erdoğan.
Thousands of migrants flocked to Edirne’s Pazarkule border crossing to Greece after Turkish officials announced Friday they would no longer try to stop irregular migrants from reaching Europe.
It followed an attack by Syrian regime forces on Turkish troops in the Idlib de-escalation zone, which martyred 34 soldiers last week.
Erdoğan said Turkey had no particular problem with Iran or Russia in Syria’s Idlib province, but his country aimed at solving the humanitarian crisis as refugees continue to flee northern Syria, and making sure that “our territory is safe.”
“Until now we conducted our operations in Idlib in a restricted manner, because we wanted to continue this process with the utmost sensitivity. However, we realized our intentions were not properly understood. That is why we started the Operation Spring Shield, extending the scope of our operations after 34 of our soldiers were martyred on Feb. 27,” Erdogan said.