Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Budapest was ready to work with Turkey on a safe zone in northern Syria. Speaking Tuesday on the si
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Budapest was ready to work with Turkey on a safe zone in northern Syria.
Speaking Tuesday on the sidelines of the Turkic Council summit in Azerbaijan, Szijjarto said resolving the Syrian refugee issue within the country would benefit Hungary.
“If Turkey establishes a safe zone in Syria to secure the return of families that were forced to leave Syria, Hungary would gladly cooperate with Turkey,” he said.
The minister added that Hungary would not want to see “hundreds of thousands or millions” of migrants coming to its borders.
According to Szijjarto, Hungary would prefer seeing Turkey resettle millions of refugees inside Syria than opening its borders for them to reach Europe.
Last week, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, the third in a series of cross-border anti-terror operations in northern Syria targeting terrorists affiliated with Daesh and the PKK’s Syrian offshoot the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The operation, conducted in line with the country’s right to self-defense borne out of international law and U.N. Security Council resolutions, aims to establish a terror-free safe zone for Syrians return in the area east of the Euphrates River controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by YPG terrorists.