Gov’t slow to find voice for Uighurs

The government has come under fire for its belated and muted reaction to the tragedy unfolding in China’s northwest Xinjiang region, which has left at least 156 people dead.

"Turkey’s decision-makers have followed a very weak, middle-course policy in the face of the tragedy of Uighur Turks," associate professor Selçuk Çolakoğlu, an Eastern-Asia expert, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "There is a misperception that the incidents are to be considered a matter of China’s territorial integrity but that’s not the case. Uighur Turks are not fighting for independence but for their basic rights and equal citizenship," he said. Çolakoğlu accompanied President Abdullah Gül in his trip to China last week.

The violence, the worst reported ethnic trouble in China in decades, saw thousands of Muslim Uighurs, who have long chafed under Chinese rule, take to the streets in the Xinjiang region’s capital, Urumqi, over the weekend. Another 1,000 were injured and more than 1,400 have been detained, according to newswire reports from China.

In Istanbul, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Ankara was closely following the developments and wished for the disquiet to be replaced by calm.

"It is not possible for Turkey to accept the pictures that have appeared in Turkish and world papers," he told reporters Wednesday, urging China to be transparent, maintain public order and improve the humanitarian situation in the troubled region.

"Our diplomatic contacts are ongoing," he said. Davutoğlu is expected to be in touch with his Chinese counterpart as well as the international community for a solution to the problem. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said: "The incidents upset not only us but shock and horrify everyone watching what’s happening."

On Tuesday the Foreign Ministry summoned the charge d’affairs of the Chinese Embassy in Ankara for consultations with deputy undersecretary Ünal Çeviköz. Ankara has conveyed its concerns, said diplomatic sources.

"We are not committing genocide in China," Chinese Embassy official Xiao Jun Jang was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. He said the

allegations that the death toll exceeded 500 did not reflect events. "Turkey should not believe such baseless claims and take into consideration the figures given by Beijing," said the official. Turkish media stepped up criticism Wednesday of the world’s silence to the events in China, with columnists urging Turkey to use its influence as a non-permanent member on the U.N. Security Council.

"Brutality," ran the pro-government daily Yeni Şafak in its headline, depicting dead bodies of Uighurs in a front-page photo. Earlier, the Foreign Ministry released a statement expressing deep sorrow and hoping that those responsible would be found out as soon as possible and brought to justice. "The statement said those responsible should be uncovered. And that’s it," wrote the newspaper’s columnist Hakan Albayrak. "The high Turkish government’s official reaction to the killings of our hundreds of kinsmen is confined to this... The balanced policy is okay but that much balance is tantamount to a sheer imbalance." "This is an ordinary statement made not to startle China," wrote Mehmet Y. Yılmaz in his column published in mainstream daily Hürriyet.

"If Turkey will not stand by the Uighurs subjected to a massacre and will fail to make it high on the world agenda, then why did Turkey struggle to secure a seat in the U.N. Security Council?" In a show of protest, all members of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, and two deputies of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, resigned from the Chinese caucus.

A MHP deputy suggested the government suspend trade with Beijing. "This would not be a wise idea," Yavuz Onay, acting chairman of the Turkish-Chinese Business Council, said.