ANKARA, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Thursday pledged to construct 50,000 briquette houses near the Turkish border in northwestern Idlib province of Syria.
Some 50,000 briquette houses will be constructed in the region by the end of this year, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said at a consultation meeting on Idlib organized by Turkey's disaster agency AFAD.
A total of 717,063,102 Turkish Liras (about 104,610,000 U.S. dollars) were collected as part of an aid campaign for Idlib that has been launched on Jan. 13, the minister said.
Some 1,146,527 Syrians are subject to the campaign, he noted.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also attended the meeting via telephone and said "currently, this effort that we are doing along the border of our neighbor is of great importance."
Earlier this year, Turkey launched an aid campaign to prevent nearly 1.5 million Syrian refugees from fleeing their homes in Idlib to Turkish border.
Turkey seeks to prevent a new influx of migrants to its territories as the country already hosts more than 3.6 million refugees. Enditem
