Turkey's Erdogan calls on Europe to lift refugee burden

MOSCOW

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the EU to do more to resolve the Syrian refugee crisis Wednesday during a visit to Moscow.

“The solution to the refugee crisis cannot be achieved by closing the borders or leaving those people to die in the sea,” Erdogan said in a news conference. “It can only be achieved by transforming their countries into habitable places where the refugees can live.”

Reiterating that Turkey was hosting more than two million refugees, mostly from war-torn Syria, he added: “I want to recall the Russian writer Tolstoy's message, which says the most important act in life is kindness.”

Referring to images of refugees who drowned trying to reach Europe, Erdogan said the pictures should “embarrass the whole of humanity.”

On Tuesday, EU interior ministers approved a plan to relocate 120,000 refugees across the continent. Various European leaders have called on the international community to do more to help Syria’s neighbors, who are sheltering most refugees.

More than 500,000 migrants and refugees have entered the EU this year, according to EU border agency Frontex, nearly double the figure for the whole of 2014, when 280,000 arrived.