Turkey Cannot Take New Refugee ‘Burden’ from Afghanistan

Mevlut Cavusoglu has made the remarks after talks with his German counterpart, as concerns about a new migrant wave remain after the Taliban’s takeover.

“As Turkey, we have sufficiently carried out our moral and humanitarian responsibilities regarding migration,” Cavusoglu said, speaking in a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday, Aljazeera reported.

“It is out of the question for us to take an additional refugee burden,” Cavusoglu said.

The events in Afghanistan have fuelled worries in the European Union of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, wherein nearly a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond crossed to Greece from Turkey before traveling north to wealthier states.

To stem the flow of refugees, the EU reached an agreement with Turkey in 2016 for it to host Syrians fleeing the war in their country in return for billions of euros for refugee projects.

Cavusoglu said Europe, as well as regional countries, would also be affected if migration from Afghanistan turns into a crisis and that lessons should be learned from the Syrian refugee crisis.

Turkey currently hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees, the world’s largest refugee population, in addition to about 300,000 Afghans. It has been reinforcing measures along its eastern border to prevent crossings in anticipation of a new migrant wave from Afghanistan.