A Turkish lawmaker of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on Thursday pointed out that Turkey alone hosts around 15 percent of the refugees in the world.

Addressing the 15th International Parliamentary General Meeting held in Seoul, Abdullah Güler, the head of parliament's Turkey-South Korea parliamentary friendship group, said Turkey hosts around 3.5 million Syrian refugees, making it the country hosting the most refugees in the world.

In addition to Syrians, Turkey hosts about 1 million refugees from other nations, Güler added.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) puts the current number of refugees worldwide at 25.4 million, and the overall number of forcibly displaced people at 68.5 million.

Güler also noted that Turkey provides free education and health services to Syrians under its temporary protection program and has so far spent more than $33 billion of expenditures for Syrians in Turkey.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in 2011 when the Bashar Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity. Out of a population of about 21 million, 6.3 million Syrians have become refugees during the war. Millions more have been internally displaced.

The U.N. and other international organizations and governments have praised Turkey for its exemplary humanitarian response to Syria's refugee crisis.