Europe has to deal with the issue of refugees because of its prior support of terrorists in Syria, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an exclusive interview with Italian Rai24 TV channel, broadcast by Syrian channels on Monday, Eurasia Diary reports citing Sputnik News. 

We have to start with a simple question: who created this problem? Why do you have refugees in Europe? It's a simple question: because of terrorism that's being supported by Europe – and of course the United States and Turkey and others – but Europe was the main player in creating chaos in Syria. So, what goes around comes around", Assad said as quoted by SANA news agency.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, millions of people have become displaced or fled to Europe, creating an ongoing migration crisis.

The Syrian president blamed the European Union as the main culprit.

"Because they publicly supported, the EU supported the terrorists in Syria from day one, week one or from the very beginning. They blamed the Syrian government, and some regimes like the French regime sent armaments, they said – one of their officials – I think their Minister of Foreign Affairs, maybe Fabius said 'we send'. They sent armaments; they created this chaos. That's why a lot of people find it difficult to stay in Syria; millions of people couldn't live here so they had to get out of Syria", he added.