Around 500,000 Syrians have voluntarily returned to their country thanks to Turkey’s efforts to establish a safe environment in the war-torn north, Savaş Ünlü, the head of Turkey’s Directorate of Migration Management, said Saturday.

Through Turkish efforts, "500,000 Syrians returned to their country voluntarily. We created a suitable atmosphere in Syria and ensured that refugees return to their homes,” he said at the Doha Forum in Qatar.

Ünlü noted that while Turkey hosts 3.7 million Syrian refugees, "they prefer to increase security measures at their own borders and try to hold migration flows on the other side of the border,” in an apparent reference to the West.

When the Syrian civil war began, Turkey opened its doors to those who had to flee the country to save their lives, now hosting more refugees than any other country in the world. Ankara also spearheads humanitarian aid efforts for Syrians in opposition-controlled parts of northern Syria and in Turkey while making large investments for Syrians in Turkey in social cohesion policies to help Syrians integrate into society smoothly.

Since launching several operations in northern Syria to fight terrorism, Turkey also rolled up its sleeves to reconstruct hospitals, schools, mosques and roads destroyed by the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terrorist organization, the YPG.

Within the scope of ameliorating the region's social infrastructure, people were given food and clothing by several NGOs while roads and buildings were rebuilt. These efforts paid off as hundreds of displaced Syrians started to return to the liberated areas.

In line with its goal to rejuvenate the region, Turkey is also building briquette houses for Syrians in the northwestern Idlib province, the last opposition bastion.

On the global refugee crisis, Ünlü also underlined the importance of international solidarity.

“The roots of the problems have to be analyzed initially. In order to minimize problems, international solidarity must be increased. However, when we look at reality, we see that developed countries prefer policies that aim to leave the migration problem on developing countries or countries that are relative less developed and bordering conflict zones by externalizing the problem,” he elaborated.

While the EU swiftly opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian aggression, granting them residence, the right to free movement and access to schools, medical care, housing and the labor market, refugees from the Middle East, especially Syrian refugees, have mostly faced pushbacks and inhumane practices at the bloc’s borders.

In response to the Italian deputy foreign minister, who at the same event said that this practice was due to the fact that consensus could not be reached at the time of the Syrian refugee crisis, Ünlü said: “The EU member countries not being able to reach a consensus at that date does not discard responsibilities originating from the 1951 Refugee Convention or from other human rights documents.”

“There can be no excuse for pushing back people illegally in the middle of the Aegean Sea.”

Turkey and human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greece's illegal practice of pushing back asylum-seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children.

Pushbacks are considered contrary to international refugee protection agreements that say people should not be expelled or returned to a country where their life or safety might be in danger due to their race, religion, nationality or membership in a social or political group.

The EU has fallen short in responding to the ongoing practice by Greece./agencies