‘We have to be shoulder to shoulder against those who are committing war crimes,’ PM Davutoglu says at Syria Donors Conference in London
In a Syrian Donors Conference in London, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu defined ISIS and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime as “two enemies of humanity”.
Those helping support the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are committing war crimes, Davutoglu said on Thursday.
“The root cause of this problem is the war crimes committed by the Syrian regime, and the war crimes committed by ISIS,” Davutoglu said in his statements on the sidelines of the fund-raising conference in London.
“Those who are helping the Assad regime are committing the same war crimes. I am especially telling this today because Aleppo is under heavy attack by Russian airplanes,” he added.
Davutoglu said that refugees seeking safety in Turkey have escaped from air bombardment by regime or by “pro-regime foreign forces”.
“My mind is not in London but in the border, how to relocate these people coming from Syria,” Davutoglu said.
The Syrian-Turkish bordering Kilis province had 10 thousand new refugees gathered, waiting to cross borders due to airstrikes on Aleppo, and “60 to 70 thousand people in the camps in North Aleppo are moving towards Turkey.”
The prime minister said Ankara would keep its open-door policy toward Syrian refugees no matter what happens in Turkey, “because we have much bigger heart than our budget. We have to be shoulder to shoulder against those who are committing war crimes.”
Davutoglu revealed that Turkey has spent 10 billion dollars on the refugee camps, noting that the estimated figures add up to a much higher total if they also account for people outside the camps.
On Thursday, leaders of governments, NGOs and the members of civil society met in London to raise funds in aid to those affected by the Syrian crisis.
The one-day Syrian Donors Conference is co-hosted by Britain, Germany, Norway, Kuwait and the United Nations. The fund raiser was beckoned late 2015 after calls were made for governments and international bodies to better cooperate on solving protracted crises.
Kuwait had hosted three other conferences for the U.N.’s Syria appeals. The first conference was held in 2013 and which raised $1.5 billion. The second conference raised $2.4 billion in 2014, and the third $3.8 billion in 2015.
Moreover, participants are pressed to raise new funding for those affected by the Syrian civil war. The conference aimed to raise $9 billion for the Syrians in need.
Turkey, a country hosting over 2.5 million refugees, has alone spent more than $10 billion for humanitarian aid, according to last week’s officially announced figures.
There are 13.5 million people in need of support in Syria, the war has affected 4.59 million refugees and resulted in the death of over 250 thousand people. The U.N. set its funding requirements for the 2016 Syria response at US$7.73 billion.