Erdogan from Tirana, calls on Europe "to take in more migrants"

Source: Beta, AP

TIRANA -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Europe to take in more migrants and refugees from Syria and Iraq.

(Beta/AP, file)

AP quoted him as saying that "his own country has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis and has been sheltering about 2 million people," and spending "USD 5.6 billion to care for 1.7 million Syrians and 300,000 Iraqis living in refugee camps or in Turkish cities."
Erdogan made the comments in Tirana, where he met with Albanian President Bujar Nishani, and added that "developed countries should do their duty and offer solutions for the migration crisis."

The Turkish president is in Albania leading a delegation of some 100 businesspeople, with the focus of his one-day visit "on economic ties," the agency said.

Erdogan said Turkey "wanted to more than double the USD 430 million annual trade exchange, adding that some 300 Turkish companies have invested USD 2.7 billion in Albania in infrastructure, the steel industry, banking, energy and telecommunication."

Erdogan will also inaugurate the start of construction on a 20,000 square-meter mosque in Tirana.

AP noted that Albania's 3.2 million population is predominantly Muslim, and that Albania "has close ties with Turkey after the Ottoman Empire kept the tiny western Balkan country under occupation from the 15th century until 1912 when it declared independence."