UPDATE - New refugee influx heading to Turkey from Syria: Erdogan

UPDATE WITH ERDOGAN'S SPEECH

By Merve Yildizalp, Baris Gundogan, Enes Kaplan

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia / ANKARA, Turkey (AA) – Already hosting 4 million refugees, Turkey is facing a new refugee influx of 50,000 Syrians, the nation’s president said on Thursday.

“Turkey already hosts 4 million [refugees], now another 50,000 are heading to our land from Idlib, [Syria],” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital.

The Turkish president’s remarks came during a round table meeting on the priority of development and challenges with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as part of the Kuala Lumpur Summit of Muslim world leaders.

Hundreds of government officials, businesspeople, representatives of civil societies and experts from different sectors across the Muslim world followed the meeting and asked questions to the leaders.

Answering a question on terrorism, Erdogan said: "They say: 'we need to fight terrorism.' How will we fight terrorists? We cannot fight terrorism just using words, we need to take actions.”

"When we say 'we need to build a safe zone,' no one gives any support, but when it comes to weapons, the gun comes," Erdogan added.

- Trade wars

At a time when trade wars are being used as tools to pressure nations, the issue of using national currencies for bilateral trade has become urgent, Erdogan said.

He said there is great potential among Islamic countries in the field of interest-free finance.

“We can establish a joint working group to realize this potential,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan said Turkey reduced its foreign dependency to 30% in the defense sector from 80% in 2003.

“We are one of the four most developed states in the world in armed unmanned aerial vehicles,” he said.

“We take care of our defense needs by producing warships, helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles, missile technology and even export them to friendly nations and allies,” Erdogan added.

* Writing by Fahri Aksut