Western countries urge more US response on refugee crisis

Official figures show that only about 1,000 Syrians have been resettled in America this fiscal year, compared with 4 million who fled their war-torn home country.

Syria, which has been mired into full-blown civil war for the past four years because of persistent Western intervention, ranks atop the largest source of refugees bound for Europe in both 2013 and 2014. In the first half of this year, the war-torn country still topped the list.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is pushing for 65,000 refugees from Syria alone to be settled in the US by the end of 2016.

Talking about the US role in the Syrian refugee crisis, IRC President David Miliband said "in the four years of the Syria crisis, there has been inertia rather than leadership."

German opposition politicians have blamed western countries, the United States in particular, for being the main cause of the refugee crisis.

"Western countries under the leadership of the United States have destabilized entire regions by making terrorist organizations, among other things, possible and exploit them," said Sahra Wagenknecht and Dietmar Bartsch, deputy parliamentary group leaders of Germany's main opposition party Die Linke in a position paper due to be presented on Monday.

They said gangs of murderers, such as the Islamic State (IS), were indirectly supported and supplied with money and weapons by countries allied with Germany, which has brought millions of people into brutal wars and civil wars.

Wagenknecht and Bartsch urged the German government to ask the US government to foot the bill for the crisis it has caused.

In addition, the two politicians called for an immediate end to German arms exports and for an increase of Germany's development aid as well as its contribution to the World Food Program, in a bid to address the causes of people fleeing war-torn countries.