FM Çavuşoğlu says Turkey cannot host any more refugees

Turkey cannot host any more refugees, either from Syria or beyond, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on March 23, in an opinion piece in the Financial Times.

In an op-ed titled  "EU inaction on Syrian refugees is a stain on human conscience," Çavuşoğlu said the European Union's claim to be a "world power that stood as a beacon for human rights and international law," will be invalid if nothing is done about Greece's treatment of refugees.

"I have long cautioned the EU not to be complacent about the challenges it faces, including the rise of extremism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism," his piece read.

"We have called for a revamped international system to manage the huge displacement of people fleeing conflicts such as Syria's. We have painstakingly tried to convince the EU to help us resolve such conflicts and address the fragilities that surround Europe."

Çavuşoğlu said the situation in Idlib is similar to the one in Gaza, Palestine. He said "nine years into the conflict, the province of Idlib has become a 'new Gaza', where 3.5 million people are sequestered."

He also touched on the Syrian regime's massive military offensive since last May and Turkey's operations in northern Syria.

"When Turkish soldiers were attacked in February, we retaliated forcefully and showed what it means to attack a NATO country," he said, noting that "one million people had begun marching towards NATO and Europe's southeastern boundary, the Turkish-Syrian border."

Çavuşoğlu also pointed out the cost of Ankara's efforts for the Syrian people in Turkey and in Syria as over $40 billion, saying "we cannot continue to protect the borders of NATO and Europe alone."

Stain on human conscience