Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has urged minorities who left Turkey due to ill-treatment in the past to return.

He made the statement at a conference organized by the Institue of International and Intercultural Dialogue in the German Bundestag on Tuesday.

According to Todays Zaman, Arınç said that “Turkey has no problem with Christians, Buddhists or Hindus and that Turks only want peace and brotherhood with Jews.”

“I want people with different faiths to live in peace in my country and I even want those who left Turkey due to mistakes [by authorities] to return to Turkey,” Arınç said, adding that the Turkish government is doing its best to solve all kinds of problems faced by religious minorities. The Turkish official described different cultural, religious and ethnic minorities as Turkey's “richness.”