WASHINGTON: First Daughter Ivanka Trump is contradicting her father, the US president, insisting that allowing Syrian refugees to immigrate to the United States “has to be part of the discussion” over ending Syria’s years old civil war.

“I think there is a global humanitarian crisis that’s happening, and we have to come together, and we have to solve it,” she told NBC News in an interview aired on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump has signed executive orders banning Syrian refugees from entering US territory, saying that they present a national security threat. Federal courts have ruled against the ban, placing it indefinitely on hold.

Opening America’s borders to the refugees “has to be part of the discussion, but that’s not going to be enough in and of itself.”

Trump has suggested creating “safe zones” for refugees and displaced people in the Middle Eastern country, and launched a cruise missile strike against President Bashar al-Assad’s military in response to an apparent chemical weapons attack.

The Syrian war has triggered the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, with more than 320,000 people killed and millions displaced. More than five million people — about a quarter of the population — have fled the country.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2017