Ankara, Dec 29 (IANS): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey supports the youth to study overseas and works to attract Turkish scientists living abroad to return home amid a debate over brain drain in the country.

"We aim to make Turkey a centre of attraction for our scientists all over the world. We strengthen our science ecosystem and reverse the brain drain thanks to our researchers who return with the programmes we have established for this purpose," Erdogan added on Wednesday at a science awards ceremony of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA) in the capital Ankara.

The President was elaborating on a recent debate in Turkey on the trend of young Turkish citizens to study or work abroad, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We are not against our young minds going abroad to improve themselves, we support this," said Erdogan.

According to the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute, the number of people leaving Turkey had almost doubled from 2016 to 2019. A total of 330,289 Turkish citizens emigrated from Turkey in 2019, nearly 40.8 per cent of them aged 20-34 years.