mr. indyk: the woman there, please. >> thank you. mr. president -- mr. indyk: please identify yourself. >> i met the president -- i'm the president of -- university. i am really proud of you and our government regarding our syrian refugee crisis, and what our government has done so far. what do you think is the main reason behind the west being so ignorant of this problem, that they have done almost nothing about the syrian refugees? we have spent over $10 billion, as you expressed, but the west has only sent $400 million so far. what do you think is the main reason behind their ignorance? president erdogan: i'm having a hard time trying to grasp the essence of that indifference. if we were to look at the refugee crisis from a humanitarian point of view, i must say that almost all of the e.u. member states are financially more resilient than turkey and they are more powerful economically. despite that fact, i was disturbed by the 5000 people and 10,000 people who have come to their countries as refugees, but we refrained from doing that. on the contrary,

then my colleague, ambassador martin indyk will conduct a conversation with the president, followed by an opportunity for him to take a few questions from our guests. mrpresident, thank you once again for being back at brookings. [ applause ] [ speaking foreign language ] >> translator: director of the brookings institute, valuable guests, ladies and gentlemen, i would like to greet you with respect. brookings is celebrating its centennial this year. it's a pleasure for me to meet you once again in this very reputable think-tank. i would like to start my remarks by reminding you of the fact that there has been a terrorist attack targeting our security forces. i denounce this. regretfully, we lost seven members of the security forces, lost their lives and have 14 injured police officers and ten civilians injured. i would like to convey my condoleannces it those who lost their lives and wish recovery for those who were injured. i am very sorry about these attacks, but those attacks will never keep us from fighting terrorists. [ indiscernible ] we are determined and we are -- people are determined to make sure that terrorism is no longer an obstacle to t