14 July 2016•Update: 15 July 2016
KONYA, Turkey
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus on Thursday warned the Syrian civil war could gradually escalate into a global war unless a solution is found to the crisis, which now is in its sixth year.
Speaking at a tourism and media congress in the central Anatolian city of Konya on Thursday, Kurtulmus said: "If the chaos and crisis in Syria are not solved, an end will come to the proxy wars in the Middle East via Syria."
Kurtulmus said "those who are behind the proxy war in Syria" wound instead find themselves dragged into a "gradual global war".
"Therefore, I think hope has been born to [find] a solution in Syria," he said.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected violence.
As many as 470,000 people have been killed over the course of the Syrian conflict, according to the NGO, Syrian Center for Policy Research.
On Monday, Kurtulmus said work was underway to grant citizenship to Syrians in Turkey.
However, he said only Syrians who have never had any links to terrorism activities and who are seen as useful to Turkish society would qualify for citizenship.
Around 2.7 million Syrians, who have fled the civil war in their country, are being sheltered at camps inside Turkey.
The conflict in Syria has now driven more than 4 million people -- a sixth of the country’s population -- to seek sanctuary in neighboring countries, making it the largest refugee crisis in a quarter of a century, according to the UN.
