UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said that Turkey plays an important role in sheltering Syrian refugees who fled from the civil war.
Guterres delivered a speech on Tuesday at the seventh annual Ambassadors' Conference in Ankara, which is organized by the Turkish foreign ministry and attended by Turkish ambassadors serving around the world.
He applauded Turkey's hospitality with regard to Syrian refugees.
"It is essential to recognize that Turkey has experienced one of the largest refugee influxes in the world of the past few decades," he added.
Turkey has provided shelter for about 1.6 million Syrian refugees since the 2011 outbreak of civil war in Syria.
"This is to a large extent the result of your generous open door policy in relation to Syrian refugees," Guterres explained. He also said that it's possible to mobilize the international community to address the challenges of our time through strong multilateral institutions.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted a lunch for the ambassadors' conference on Tuesday at the presidential palace. During the lunch, he said the cost of the Dec. 17, 2014 corruption probe to Turkish public was about 120 billion TL. The parliamentary commission established to look into claims of corruption against four former Cabinet ministers concluded on Monday when the commission ruled against sending the ex-ministers to trial.
Erdoğan also reiterated that the Turkish press is freer than the press in Europe or anywhere in the world and dismissed international criticism of press freedoms in Turkey.
President Erdoğan also met with the director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova. Bokova delivered a speech on Monday at the opening of the ambassadors' conference.