Turkey won't accept 'refugee burden' from Afghanistan

Turkey, which already hosts more than 300,000 Afghans, has warned it doesn't have the resources to accept additional migrants from the war-torn country.
Jandarma officers monitor Afghan migrants sitting in the back of a smuggler's van that was caught transporting the migrants from the Turkey-Iran border on July 10, 2021 in Caldiran, Turkey.
Jandarma officers monitor Afghan migrants sitting in the back of a smuggler's van that was caught transporting them from the Turkey-Iran border on July 10, 2021, in Caldiran, Turkey. - Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Al Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East
Al-Monitor Staff

Turkey cannot accept the influx of migrants fleeing Afghanistan, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned on Sunday, as foreign governments scrambled to evacuate their citizens and at-risk Afghans from the Taliban-run country.  

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

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