'Islam has no place in Slovakia,' says PM

By Mehmet Yilmaz

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said he was against the development of a Muslim population in his country.

"It may look strange but sorry, Islam has no place in Slovakia," Fico told the Slovakian TASR news agency on Wednesday.

Fico said he would continue to oppose a European Union migrant quota plan under which responsibility for refugees and migrants would be shared across the 28-nation bloc.

His comments came weeks before Slovakia is supposed to hold the EU rotating presidency.

Fico told TASR that the problem was not migrants entering Slovakia, but "rather in them changing the face of the country”.

In Slovakia, which boasts a population of 5.4 million people, only 169 asylum applications were made.

Last year, Slovakia and Hungary filed a legal action with the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union against the bloc’s migrant relocation plan.

*Anadolu Agency Correspondent Ilgin Karlıdag contributed to this story from Istanbul.