Turkey’s prime minister called for an end to “savagery” in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang that has killed at least 156 people, including many minority Uighurs who share ethnic bonds with Turks.
“Our expectation is for these incidents that have reached the level of savagery to be rapidly stopped,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.
RESPONSIBILITY
Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made separate calls to China to bring “those responsible to account” in a transparent manner.
“We are following the events with great concern, worry and sadness,” the prime minister said.
The reaction of the Turkish leaders echoed public anger in Turkey after local media and pro-Uighur associations suggested that most of the victims were Uighurs.
Several newspapers have printed gruesome images of dead people in the streets of Urumqi following the clashes, triggering protests outside Chinese diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul over the past two days.
“The public conscience cannot accept these images,” Erdogan said, adding that Turkey would take the issue to the UN Security Council.
About 500 Turks — members of a civil servants’ union and a far-right nationalist group — laid black wreaths in front of the Chinese embassy before dispersing peacefully. A similar protest was held outside the Chinese consulate in Istanbul.
Also on Wednesday, a lawmaker from Turkey’s ruling Islamic-rooted party resigned from a Chinese-Turkish parliamentary friendship group to protest the Chinese government’s handling of the incidents.
BOYCOTT
A consumers’ group meanwhile called for a boycott of Chinese goods.
“We attach great importance to our friendship with China and we regard the Uighurs as a bridge for this friendship,” Davutoglu said.
Turkey regards the Uighurs as brethren and is concerned about China’s treatment of the minority group in the sprawling, far-flung western region of Xinjiang which has long been a source of trouble for China’s communist government. Turkey is home to a sizable Uighur community.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS