Baku-APA. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to pay a visit to Turkey on Friday as part of his regional tour for talks on the Syria crisis, a Turkish official statement said Thursday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
The UN chief will visit a refugee camp in Islahiye town of Gaziantep province in southeastern Turkey, where Syrian refugees who have fled the violence in their country are being sheltered, according to the statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
"Afterwards, Ban Ki-moon will proceed to Ankara to meet Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu," the statement said, adding that the latest regional developments are likely to be discussed during the meetings.
Ban will travel to Turkey after wrapping up talks in Jordan.
In recent weeks, Ban has warned of the danger of a spillover of the prolonged Syrian conflict into Turkey.
Worries are also growing after the Turkish military boosted deployment along the frontier and retaliated after shells from Syria hit Turkish border towns and killed five people in October.
Syria has been in a dire situation since March 2011 when protests erupted demanding the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. The crisis, marked by violent clashes between the government forces and armed rebels, has prompted a large number of refugees streaming into neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.
According to local officials, Turkey has spent over 280 million U.S. dollars from its own finance on accommodating around 130,000 Syrian refugees, and has so far set up for them 14 camps in seven southern and southeastern provinces.
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