President Erdoğan slams West over refugee policy

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has underlined that developed nations are hosting 2.7 refugees per 1,000, while underdeveloped countries are sheltering more than twice this figure, blaming them for using the global refugee problem as advertising material.

“The high-income countries host an average of 2.7 refugees per 1,000 people, while middle- and low-income countries host 5.8 refugees, according to United Nations figures. Those who use the few hundred refugees they have accepted as advertising material take no responsibility in the face of the deepening humanitarian crisis,” Erdoğan said, addressing in a video message for the Global Parliamentary Conference on Migration on June 20.

Erdoğan said Türkiye welcomed 3.6 million Syrian refugees who fled from the conflicts in Syria and did not reject anyone who came to the border because of their ethnic identity, religion, culture, disposition and sect. “We are the country that has been hosting the most refugees in the world for the last seven years,” he said.

“We have opened our doors to millions of people who have been persecuted in the last 500 years, especially the Jews who fled the Inquisition. Our brothers in the Caucasus and our compatriots in the Balkans always took refuge in Türkiye as a safe harbor when they were in trouble,” he noted.

Economic problems triggered by the COVID-19 epidemic have pushed more people to leave their homes, Erdoğan stated, informing the current number of migrants worldwide has reached 275 million, the number of displaced persons approaching 85 million, and the number of refugees nearing 30 million.

Greece’s pushbacks in Aegean

Erdoğan also criticized Greece for “persecuting, robbing and even murdering” refugees and said Türkiye bears the real burden of the problem.

“Almost every day, we witness the plight of refugees who were persecuted, robbed, beaten, or even murdered by the Greek security forces. In fact, countries like us, which are neighbors to crisis areas, bear the real burden on the issue of migration and refugees, not developed societies that have a loud voice,” he said.

Pointing out that nearly 30,000 refugees, mostly women and children, lost their lives in the Mediterranean in the past period, Erdoğan noted the whereabouts of tens of thousands of Syrian children “who took refuge in Europe, who were abducted, and what their fate” was is not known.

Expressing that he is very happy to host parliamentarians in Istanbul, the crossroads of civilizations and continents, President Erdoğan congratulated all the institutions that supported and contributed to the execution of the conference.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union serves as an important platform for dialogue for parliamentarians with different political systems and ideas, the president said.

The union, which allows the parliamentarians, who are the representatives of our peoples, to share their views and experiences with each other, also contributes to the development of solutions to global problems, he added.

The phenomenon of irregular and forced migration is no longer a problem of countries or regions; it has become the problem of the whole world, Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop said, speaking at the conference. “The issue of migration is an issue that shows us that the destiny and future of all humanity are common,” he stated.