The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, declared Wednesday that the refugees flooding to Europe from Muslim-majority countries must ultimately return to their own countries to rebuild them.

“I think Europe belongs to the Europeans,” the 83-year-old Tibetan, who has been in exile in India since 1959 after an uprising against Chinese rule, said at a conference in Sweden’s multicultural city of Malmo, Agence France-Presse reported.

The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, said Europe was “morally responsible” to help refugees who are facing danger in their native countries, but that their stay in Europe should be a temporary one.

“Receive them, help them, educate them … but ultimately they should develop their own country,” he said.

The Dalai Lama made similar comments in June 2016 when he expressed concerns about Germany potentially becoming an Arab country.

“Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country,” he told a German newspaper. “Germany is Germany. There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult. … From a moral point of view, too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily.”

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