Fahreddin Altun, communication director, Presidency of Turkish Republic:
Turkey continues to implement “temporary protection” for Syrians in our country. None of our Syrian brothers & sisters has been asked to leave. If they choose to stay, they can. If they choose to leave, they can.
We have modified our policy and we will not stop refugees from leaving Turkey. Given our limited resources & personnel, we are focusing on planning for contingencies in case of further inflows from Syria instead of preventing refugees who intend to migrate to Europe.
Some of these refugees decided to leave following this change of policy. The number of those who left Turkey for Europe in the past several days is 80,888. This number may increase in the following days.
Turkey can no longer accept additional refugees from the Idlib region in Syria but we are preparing for any irregular migration flows. Europe and others must take robust action to address this monumental challenge. We can’t be expected to do this on our own.
Turkey hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees who escaped war, destruction, chaos. We are proud to have spent our precious national resources to help our brothers and sisters thanks to the generosity of Turkish people. The international community left us alone in facing this challenge
