(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Washington, July 13 (QNA) - The Obama administration will meet its target of settling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States by the time fiscal year 2016 ends on September 30, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced.
Addressing Eid Al-Fitr reception at the State Department on Tuesday night, Kerry noted that the 10,000 figure would be a six-fold increase in Syrian refugee admissions from FY 2015.
"Tonight, I can announce proudly that we will meet President Obama";s goal of welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States in the current fiscal year," he said.
"Those are refugees, which is different from normal process of migration and green card and becoming a citizen and so forth. It";s a very different category," Kerry added. "It";s also representing six-fold increase over what we did the year before".
Obama";s 10,000 target drew strong opposition from critics concerned about the possibility that groups like the ISIS may use refugee admission programs to infiltrate terrorists into Western countries.
Dozens of GOP governors said they would not allow Syrian refugees to settle in their states.
In his Eid remarks, Kerry also announced that the US would immediately be contributing another $439 million to help Syrian refugees and internally displaced people, "in addition to the $5.1 billion in humanitarian assistance that we have already provided since the start of the Syrian civil war".
"I";m proud to say that the United States is by far the largest contributor of emergency aid, but we all recognize that still more needs to be done," he said.
"More needs to be done to help those who are besieged inside Syria. More has to be done to assist refugees," Kerry added.
"More has to be done to support Syria";s neighbors – Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey – and more to resolve this brutal conflict that has cost far too many lives and forced far too many people from their homes," he added.
Kerry heads for Moscow this week in a bid to advance efforts to negotiate an end to the civil war, now in its sixth year. (QNA)