Turkiye's Foreign Minister said that China has refused to allow the Turkish ambassador to visit the Uyghur region in the north-western Xinjiang province, causing strained ties between the two nations.
While addressing the media in the capital Ankara on Thursday, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that the Chinese government "said that a humanitarian delegation from Türkiye could come and examine [Xinjiang]. It's been five years since [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] proposed this. Why have you been preventing this delegation from visiting for five years, why don't you cooperate?"
"Turkish-Chinese ties have suffered over Beijing being disturbed by our attitude on the Turkic-Uyghurs issue. They have extradition requests for people who are our citizens, and who live in Türkiye all the time. Therefore, we don't grant any such requests,” he said.
"We defend Turkic Uyghur's rights in the international arena and this disturbs China. But this is a humanitarian issue,” he told reporters at the year-ending presser.
He also cited the 48-page report that the United Nations Human Rights Council published on Uyghurs in September, which found that mass detentions in the disputed Xinjiang region over the years were marked by evident documentation of torture, sexual violence, forced labor, and forced abortions and sterilizations.
“That report "reveals all [human rights] violations. We have to react to it." Instead of allowing the Turkish ambassador in China to freely visit the region where Uyghur Turks live, Beijing wants us to follow a "program that they provide,” he said.
“What Türkiye wants is cooperation with China transparently. Why should we become a tool for China's propaganda? We want to cooperate, we don't see this as a political issue. We are categorically not anti-Chinese. We have always said that we support the One-China policy,” he added.