BERLIN
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday Germany was ready to do its bit to provide humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees.
At a joint press conference in the Foreign Ministry with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonia Guterres and Germany’s Development Minister Gerd Mueller, Steinmeier said more than 200,000 people were killed in the ongoing civil war in Syria during the last five years.
Moreover, there were 12 million Syrians in need of humanitarian aid.
"We need $6 billion to provide humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees," Steinmeier said.
"This is a call on all countries for solidarity. My country is ready to make contribution on this issue," the German minister said.
He said the crisis in Syria threatened the stability of neighboring countries and the region. "We need a political solution for the crisis in Syria as soon as possible," he added.
Guterres said Turkey had already spent $4.3 billion in humanitarian aid on Syrians so far.
"The load imposed by refuges should be fairly shared," he said.
He recalled that over 60,000 Syrians requested asylum in Germany in 2014 and stressed on the need for a comprehensive solution to the complicated conflict.
He also said that neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon needed aid.
"They need financial and structural aid to strengthen infrastructure," he added.
Mueller called for ending terrorism and killings in Syria. "This is the responsibility of all of us, we should be aware of it," he said.
The opposition forces in Syria began protests to topple President Bashar Al-Assad in March 2011, a struggle that turned into a civil war in July of that year after regime forces violently suppressed the protests.
More than 190,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began, according to UN figures published last August.
According to Amnesty International, more than 10 million people have been forced out of their homes; at least four million of them have become refugees, mostly in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
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