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The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) has strongly criticised the latest political consultations between China and Turkey, accusing Ankara of deepening its security cooperation with Beijing at the expense of the Uyghur and other Turkic communities in East Turkistan.
The criticism follows the July 16 meeting between Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Miao Deyu and Turkish Vice Foreign Minister Berris Ekinci. According to China's Foreign Ministry, both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in areas including law enforcement and security. Turkey also reiterated its commitment to the "One China" principle and affirmed that its territory would not be used against China's claimed "sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity". Reacting to the developments, ETGIE said in a statement posted on X that the consultations represented "the latest link in a decades-long chain of betrayal" against the Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples, who it alleges are suffering under what it describes as China's "genocide and colonial occupation" in East Turkistan. The exile government also revealed that its Foreign and Security Minister, Salih Hudayar, recently met Turkish Vice Foreign Minister Levent Gumrukcu following an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. During the meeting, Hudayar reportedly urged Ankara to become "the voice of East Turkistan" and end its security and intelligence cooperation with China, which ETGIE claims has continued since 1996. In a strongly worded statement, ETGIE asserted that Turkey's position was "a grotesque inversion of the truth." It argued that East Turkistan is an occupied homeland of Turkic peoples and maintained that the People's Republic of China invaded the region in the late 1940s, overthrowing the independent East Turkistan Republic and establishing what it called an unlawful colonial occupation. "This is not diplomacy. This is complicity in crime," the statement said, alleging that Turkey's long-standing cooperation with Beijing has facilitated the surveillance, infiltration, criminalisation, and suppression of East Turkistan's independence movement. ETGIE further alleged that, as Turkey and China mark 55 years of diplomatic relations, millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples remain imprisoned, subjected to forced labour, forcibly sterilised, and separated from their families. It also claimed that China's "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress", enacted in March 2026, legally reinforces policies that it characterises as genocidal. China has consistently rejected allegations of genocide and human rights abuses in Xinjiang, saying its policies are aimed at combating extremism, separatism, and terrorism. (ANI)
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