UN official lauds Turkey's efforts for Syrian refugees

By Muhammet Ikbal Arslan and Mehmet Alaca

ANKARA (AA) - Praising Turkey’s efforts for Syrian refugees, a UN official said its policies should be model for others.

“Turkey did great job for Syrian refugees. It will continue to respond to the need of them,” Jean-Marie Garelli, deputy representative of UN Refugee Agency in Turkey, told an opening ceremony of a project aiming to improve Turkish language learning and access of Syrian refugees to vocational training in Turkey.

Garelli underlined that these efforts of Turkey should be taken as an example.

Learning Turkish language, Garelli said, is a key for participation in the social life, adding the project will increase the interaction between the host society and refugees.

Turkey currently hosts almost four million registered refugees -- out of which nearly 3.6 million are Syrians, more than any other country in the world.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.