The President of the Czech Republic has called on refugees to respect his country’s rules or leave, telling them: “Nobody invited you here.”

In an interview with newspaper Blesk, Czech President Milos Zeman told the growing number of refugees in the Czech Republic to “respect our laws, just as we respect the law when we come to your country.”

He added: “If you do not like it, go away.”

The Prague Daily Monitor said that his remarks were aimed primarily at the wave of Middle Eastern and African migrants entering the country, rather than Ukrainian migrants who have been fleeing the conflict in their own country.

“Unlike the Islamic ones, they have a much a better ability to assimilate themselves,” he said.

Last Tuesday, the country’s Prime Minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, accused Zeman of appealing to people’s “basest instincts” and of spreading hatred against refugees. Zeman responded: “Some may consider it appealing to the basest instincts, but this is the same stance that Hungarians share when they build a fence against Serbia, and Americans who have built a fence on their border with Mexico.”

Zeman then went on to blame Western powers for the current refugee crisis:

“The current wave of migration is rooted in the crazy idea to invade Iraq, which allegedly had weapons of mass destruction, but nothing was found.”

“It is not only the United States who is to blame for this, because some EU member states coordinated the operations against Libya,” he added.

However, the Czech President then went on to say that he would call on the UN General Assembly later this year to launch a military campaign to destroy terrorist training camps.

The Czech Interior Ministry expects between 5,000 and 7,000 illegal immigrants to arrive in the country next year, with some 3,500 expected this year.