February 01, 2017•Update: February 02, 2017
By Sibel Ugurlu
ANKARA
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has criticized the international community on Wednesday over its inadequate support for the Syrian refugees, saying it is "not enough to just appreciate" Turkey's efforts.
Speaking during an award ceremony at the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party’s headquarters in Ankara, Yildirim said: "The international community should remember its responsibilities. We will do whatever we should…[but] we want other countries to take some of the burden."
He said the international community had contributed $700 million so far, which was inadequate to meet the needs of the refugees.
He said Turkey was voluntarily hosting more than 3 million refugees, majority of whom were Syrians.
"They are our neighbors, our brothers of the same religion, [but] first of all, they are human beings," the premier said.
Citing a traditional saying in Turkish, Yildirim said: "Let man flourish and the state will also flourish."
Turkey is hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, and has so far spent around $25 billion helping and sheltering them since the beginning of the Syrian war.
Among them, over 1 million are child refugees, making Turkey the top child refugee-hosting country in the world.
