ANKARA
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres will pay a five day visit to Turkey between June 17 and 21, Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
Guterres will be in Turkey on World Refugee Day, which is observed on June 20.
According to the statement, Guterres will arrive in Istanbul on June 17.
On June 19, Guterres is expected to hold official talks in Ankara, including with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Then, he will visit Turkey's southeastern provinces of Mardin, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep, where Syrian refugees have been hosted.
Turkey, which shares a 900-kilometer long border with Syria, has given refuge to more than 1.7 million Syrians, according to the UN's refugee agency, with more people coming in because of ongoing bloodshed in the war-torn country.
Over the past two weeks, over 20,000 Syrian refugees fleeing clashes in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad entered Turkey’s Sanliurfa province through the Akcakale border crossing.
