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Turkey raises Uighur issue with Chinese minister amid protests

aziqbal

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Well done to the Sultan Erdogan

More than 40,000 Uighurs are living in Istanbul and they have their own cultural school and languages to ensure future generations remember what happened

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey raised the issue of Uighur Muslims during talks with China’s foreign minister in Ankara on Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, as hundreds of Uighurs protested against the treatment of their ethnic kin in China.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Cavusoglu and later President Tayyip Erdogan, as around 1,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul, chanting “Dictator China” and “Stop Uighur Genocide, Close the Camps”. Some waved blue-and-white flags of the independence movement of East Turkestan, the name by which the movement refers to Xinjiang.

“We are here to ask about our families. Why can’t we get in touch with our families? Are they dead or alive? Where are they? Are they at camps or outside?” said Imam Hasan Ozturk, a Uighur protester.

China approved an extradition treaty with Turkey in December and with the deal awaiting ratification by Ankara’s parliament, activists among some 40,000 Uighurs living in Turkey have stepped up efforts to highlight their plight, holding regular protests in Ankara and Istanbul.

Cavusoglu, who has denied that the extradition accord would lead to Uighurs being sent back to China, said after meeting Wang he had conveyed “our sensitivity and thoughts on Uighur Turks”, adding that Ankara and Beijing would enhance cooperation against the COVID-19 pandemic and on vaccines.

Uighurs’ worries have been fuelled by Ankara’s dependence on China for COVID-19 vaccines, having received 15 million doses from Sinovac Biotech and ordered tens of millions more. This week, Turkey received 1.4 million doses of the vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech, the first significant batch of non-Chinese vaccines.

U.N. experts estimate at least a million Uighurs and other Muslims are held in detention centres in northwest China’s Xinjiang. The United States said in January China has committed “genocide and crimes against humanity” by repressing Uighurs.
China denies accusations of abuses in Xinjiang, and has said the complexes it set up in the region provided vocational training to help stamp out Islamist extremism and separatism.

A Chinese embassy spokesperson said last month that Uighurs who have been holding regular protests near China’s diplomatic premises in Turkey in recent months were trying to deceive Turkish people and damage relations.

 
Long live the Sultan Erdogan the saviour of Muslims around the World

Turkey: Hundreds of Uighurs protest visit by Chinese foreign minister

Hundreds of Uighurs gathered in Istanbul on Thursday to protest the visit of the Chinese foreign minister to the country, calling for the Turkish government to raise the issue of the mass abuse and detention of the minority in China.

Wang Yi was set to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, as Turkey negotiates new deliveries of Chinese firm Sinovac's Covid-19 vaccine.

Turkey has seen a spike in coronavirus infections in recent weeks, following the loosening of restrictions on 1 March, and Erdogan's government has been keen to push an inoculation drive in the country.

However, the 50,000-strong Uighur community has raised fears that new shipments of the Chinese vaccine could end up being dependent on Turkey ratifying an extradition treaty approved in Beijing last year. Both countries officially deny any such link.

'China, stop the genocide!'
Protesters in Istanbul waved the sky blue flag of Uighur separatists' self-proclaimed state of East Turkestan as they gathered in the historic old town chanting "China, stop the genocide!"

Beijing strongly denies the allegations and says it is organising training programmes and work schemes to help stamp out extremism in the region.

Uighurs speak a Turkic language and have cultural ties with Turkey that make it a favoured destination for avoiding persecution back home.

"I am frustrated. Why is Turkey receiving the Chinese foreign minister?" one of the protesters, Abdullatif Ragip, 62, told AFP. "They do a lot of harm in East Turkestan."

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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has argued that Ankara's ratification of the extradition agreement would not mean that Ankara "will release Uighurs to China".

But Uighurs in Turkey are pressing Erdogan's government to join a new wave of western sanctions against Chinese officials over their actions in Xinjiang.

"We are scared about the future. What will happen to our children? Turkey should open its eyes and stand by innocent Uighurs," said Rahile Seker, a female protester in Istanbul.

Another demonstrator, Feyzullah Kaymak, said Turkey must ask the Chinese foreign minister what happens in camps.

"We want Turkey to ask the Chinese foreign minister what happens over there... We want Turkey to raise its voice."

The Turkish government released images of Cavusoglu and Wang sitting down for talks in Ankara, but the two ministers have scheduled no press events.


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They failed miserably in HK, now it's Xinjiang.
You got the sequence of events wrong. The problems in Xinjiang have existed for a long time. HK issue is fairly new.
 
@aziqbal , since the 1980s, myriads of Uyghur Turks had to abandoned their homeland and settled in Turkey by political asylum or direct migration. These people speak the same language as us. In fact, Uyghur Turkish is the closest dialect to Turkish spoken in Anadolu-Rumeli(Asia Minor- Balkans) along with Gagauz (Moldova) Turks, Syrian-Iraqi-Lebanese Turks and Qrimea, Azerbaijan Turks. Therefore, these people are in all social life in Istanbul, Izmir other metropols. They share their troubles and describe their lifes. They organize panels and symposiums on the systematic policies of the Chinese state. They easily affect the thought worlds of activist people for justifiable reasons. It is difficult for me to describe the awareness about Uygurs and anger towards the current ruling party here. In other words, although the person you describe as the 'sultan' is there with the support of nationalist wing, his most contradictory attitude is the Uighur issue.
 
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