The Times reported on Saturday morning that the foreign secretary – who is in the running to become the next Conservative prime minister – would like to open negotiations on sending migrants to countries such as Turkey. This will follow the deal struck in the spring with Rwanda, which has received £100m from the British government in return for hosting deported refugees crossing the Channel in small boats.

But later on Saturday Turkey hit back at the proposal, warning that the country would not become a “refugee camp or border guard” for any other nation. Turkey, a nation of 85 million people, already has the world’s largest refugee population, including 3.7 million people who have fled the civil war in neighboring Syria. “We hope that these allegations about Ms Truss in the press are unfounded,” Tanju Bilgiç, the ministry’s official spokesman, said in a statement on Saturday. “It is impossible for our nation – the largest host of refugees in the world for the last eight years – to take on a greater burden at the request of a third country and, moreover, to contribute to an approach that is incompatible with international rules on the right to asylum.” He added: “Turkey will not become a refugee camp or a border guard for any other country, nor will it in any way assume the international obligations of a third country.” The Truss campaign team played down the idea that it had drawn up an official plan to take failed refugees to countries such as Turkey. However, they admitted he had raised the idea with Christopher Chope, a Tory backbencher. “Liz supports the Rwandan policy and supports its expansion to other countries,” her spokesperson said. More than 14,000 refugees have crossed the canal in small boats so far this year, intensifying political pressure on the government to address the issue. Despite the agreement with the Kigali government, no refugees have yet been sent to Rwanda, in part due to successful legal challenges. All Conservative leadership candidates have pledged to maintain the controversial Rwanda policy, which has been widely criticized by charities, human rights groups and bishops. Turkey struck a €6 billion deal with the EU in 2016 as Brussels sought to prevent a repeat of Europe’s migrant crisis of 2015. It led to a big drop in the number of people crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece. However, Turkey’s large refugee population has become a source of intense public anger as households grapple with inflation of nearly 80% and a plunge in the value of the lira. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces a re-election challenge in a run-off before June 2023, is under pressure to emulate the country’s main opposition parties by pledging to send refugees back to Syria. Truss, who last month visited Ankara for meetings with senior Turkish officials, used the trip to describe Turkey as an “important partner for the UK”, citing energy, defense and security as key areas of cooperation.