Tag: Uighurs

UPDATE 3-Uighur protests as China’s Xi visits Turkey

* Turkish PM called 2009 Chinese crackdown on riots “genocide”

* Uighur protesters burn Chinese flag, Xi poster

* China is Turkey’s 15th biggest export market

* Erdogan says will visit China in coming months (Adds meeting with Erdogan)

By Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Activists from China’s Muslim Uighur minority burnt Chinese flags in Ankara on Tuesday where China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping was holding talks with Turkish officials on regional issues.

About 60 Turkic-speaking Uighurs from China’s northwestern Xinjiang province protested outside the hotel where Xi was staying in the Turkish capital on the last leg of a trip that also took him to the United States and Ireland.

Xi, almost sure to succeed Hu Jintao as president in just over a year, praised Turkey’s role in trying to resolve issues such as the Iranian nuclear dispute and Middle East conflicts.

Waving the flag of East Turkestan, pale blue with a white star and crescent, the protesters burnt a Chinese flag and a poster of Xi before police moved in to disperse them.

Rights groups accuse China of abuses during a crackdown after Uighur riots in 2009 and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan then described the events as a “genocide”. Turkey is home to thousands of Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang since the Chinese Communists took over the region in 1949.

Xi said China had made great strides to raise the living standards of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

Turkey and China are at either end of a political and economic axis stretching along the old silk road though Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan. Both have strong, sometimes competing economic interests in the region.

Turkey, now the world’s 16th biggest economy and only second to China in growth last year, has projected itself as a stable Muslim democracy, making it a key player at a time of turmoil and unrest in the Middle East.

“A member of the G20 with a growing economy and an important country in the Middle East, Turkey has for a long time tried to bring stability and development to the region and played an active role in trying to solve ‘hot’ issues,” Xi told Turkey’s Sabah newspaper listing Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear and Middle East peace efforts.

BILLION DOLLAR DEALS

Turkey has sought to mediate between the West and Iran in a dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme and has broadly shared China’s opposition to stronger sanctions against Tehran.

But on Syria their positions have been sharply at odds.

While Turkey has taken a leading role in pressuring Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down, China, along with Russia, this month blocked a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that backed an Arab plan urging him to quit.

China has also not decided whether to accept an invitation to discuss Syria with other world powers this week in Tunisia, a meeting Turkey’s foreign minister will attend and Ankara hopes will keep up pressure for Assad to step down.

Xi met President Abdullah Gul on Tuesday and signed seven bilateral economic agreements.

The central banks of Turkey and China signed a three-year currency swap agreement worth $1.6 billion which will be effective for three years, both sides said. The two countries could discuss extending its maturity after that.

China has signed a series of bilateral currency agreements with foreign countries as part of efforts to promote the use of the yuan in cross-boarder trade and investment.

The Turkish energy ministry also said China’s Avic International and Turkey’s Hema Endustri, a Turkish engineering manufacturing company, will sign a $1 billion deal for power plant and coal production equipment.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said the agreement could lead to cooperation with China on building Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Xi later travelled to Istanbul for talks with Erdogan, who is recovering from surgery at home there. Citing prime ministerial officials, Turkish state media said the two men met for one hour where they agreed to increase economic cooperation.

During the meeting, which was closed to the media, Erdogan accepted a formal invitation by Xi to visit China and said he would travel there in the coming months, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

On Wednesday, Xi attends a business forum in Istanbul, where he is likely to be assailed by exporters eager to try to bridge a gaping trade gap.

China is Turkey’s 15th biggest export market with nearly $2.5 billion of Turkish goods sold there last year, a rise of 8.7 percent. But some $21.6 billion worth of Chinese goods were imported to Turkey in 2011, up 26 percent from 2010. (Additional reporting by Jon Hemming, Orhan Coskun and Jonathon Burch; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Maria Golovnina)

via UPDATE 3-Uighur protests as China’s Xi visits Turkey | Reuters.

February 22, 2012
And Now, Anacostia: Food News: Kabobs for Anacostia?

Food News: Kabobs for Anacostia?

This seems a bit random, but also goes to show that nowadays it isn’t only the “expected” organizations and businesses that are beginning to move to Anacostia. Last week I got news that Rebiya Kadeer (read this great bio from the New York Times), the Uyghur activist and millionaire businesswoman who was exiled from China in 2005, purchased the long-boarded-up commercial building next door to the Honfleur Gallery.

At first, my understanding was that it would be the new DC headquarters for the World Uyghur Congress or the Uyghur American Association – but as of today I heard a different story.

According to sources who spoke with Ms. Kadeer at the site this morning, she plans to open a Uyghur restaurant – featuring the western Chinese ethnic group’s famous kabobs – in the space later this year.

I’m sure more info will begin to seep out soon – but regardless of what moves in it’s wonderful to see this abandoned and decrepit building go back to productive use! Crossing our fingers that kabobs are in Anacostia’s future!

(I spent a semester in Beijing, and happened to live near a Uyghur-dominated commercial street so know and love the food. Great kabobs, edamame, flatbread, and potato dishes)

via And Now, Anacostia: Food News: Kabobs for Anacostia?.

June 30, 2011
Looking for Plov in Istanbul

Mihman: Plov and Happiness

(Editor’s Note: Since it turns out that “DTVAE,” our favorite Uighur restaurant in town, is closed while the Ottoman-era building it is in is being restored, we thought it might be worthwhile to again run this review of another excellent Uighur spot — which happens to be right around the corner from the closed one.)

It was a dark and stormy night. We found ourselves standing cold and shivering, stomachs growling, in the lobby of a shady hotel, our dining plans once again thwarted by the capricious nature of Istanbul’s restaurateurs. What was supposed to be a restaurant inside the hotel serving southeastern Turkish cuisine had now been turned into a forlorn spot devoid of customers and with an unappealing menu written in Russian.

What to do? We stepped outside and took a look around and saw few promising options in this part of town, known as Laleli, a wholesale clothing district dominated by shops selling cut-rate leather and fur coats and by cheapo kebab joints. That’s when we remembered a recent tip we had been given about a new “Uzbek” restaurant in the area. After making a few inquiries with some locals, we found ourselves inside the gleaming Mihman, a Central Asian restaurant that opened its doors only a few months ago.

Things looked promising right off the bat. The vaguely gaudy décor and the frilly tea cozies on the tables telegraphed Central Asian authenticity. This was quickly reinforced by the pot of steaming green tea that was brought to our table, to be drunk – Central Asian style – out of small bowls. The encyclopedic menu, meanwhile, promised a long list of tempting dishes, both familiar classics and intriguing obscure ones, that will make a return visit a must.

Perhaps overcome with hunger and a sense of nostalgia for previous meals we’ve had in the land of the ‘stans, we went ahead and ordered several things. Perhaps we were again overcome by hunger and nostalgia, but we can report that everything we ordered at Mihman – run by an Uzbek who hails from the Uighur city of Kashgar in western China – was a winner. The extremely fresh puffy little round loaves of Uzbek naan seemed as if they had been flown in from Tashkent that morning. The plump Uighur-style manti were superb. Çuçure, a soulful reddish broth that had tiny dumplings floating in it, hit the spot on a rainy night. The very tasty Kashgar kebab, grilled chunks of lamb flavored with an earthy-tasting mix of spices, took us back in time to a long-ago visit to the dish’s namesake city.

We ended the meal by renewing our plov affair with plov, the Uzbek rice dish that conquered Central Asia. Like any good plov, Mihman’s hid layers of complexity beneath a deceptively humble façade, with fragrant basmati rice, slivers of sweet carrot cooked until they are almost candied, assertive cumin seeds and chunks of flavorful meat all working together to create one of the more appealing comfort food dishes we know of.

We take the opening of this enticing plov shack (which is located near an excellent Uighur restaurant) as a very positive sign for Istanbul’s dining scene, which until recently had been devoid of good, authentic places serving food from other parts of the wider region surrounding Turkey, particularly east of the border. Considering how many Uzbeks, Uighurs, Iranians and others call Istanbul home, we’ve always found it a bit strange that it’s very hard to find any restaurants serving food that caters to them.

Much has been made recently about Turkey’s possible drift eastwards. We don’t like to comment on political matters here, but when it comes to culinary ones, we say: drift, baby, drift.

Address: Gençtürk Cad. No. 65, Fatih

Telephone: 212-526-0803

Web: www.mihman.com.tr

(photo by Yigal Schleifer)

via Looking for Plov in Istanbul | Istanbul Eats.

June 30, 2011
Rebiya Kadeer

Rebiya Kadeer is a former businesswoman whose activistism on behalf for the rights of China’s Uighur ethnic group, to which she belongs, led to her jailing and exile.

In 2005, she was released to the United States from her prison cell in China. Now settled in Washington, she has become the public face of an ethnic group that is little known in much of the world. Although her fame hardly approaches that of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, Ms. Kadeer has come to personify the Uighur cause, and that status may only grow with China’s denunciations.

Ms. Kadeer first gained fame as an astute businesswoman and then a favored example of China’s claims of multiethnic harmony. She built an empire of trading companies and a department store and was even appointed to China’s national legislative body. But Communist Party leaders became suspicious of her loyalties in the late 1990s. She was arrested in 1999 and sentenced to eight years for betraying state secrets.

Under pressure from the United States and international organizations, she was released to exile in March 2005. She was soon elected president of two exile groups, the Uighur American Association, which represents the 1,000 or so Uighurs in the United States, and the World Uighur Congress, an umbrella for 47 groups worldwide, with headquarters in Munich.

Both groups receive much of their funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a bipartisan organization created and financed by the United States Congress that promotes democracy worldwide. They engage in research and advocacy on human rights issues that affect the Uighur people.

Although the Chinese government has accused Ms. Kadeer and her groups of abetting terrorism, the organizations say they reject ties to violence or Islamic extremism. They call for democracy and “self-determination” for the Uighurs, side-stepping the explosive issue of independence.

When riots broke out in Uighur cities in July 2009, the Chinese government accused her of fomenting the violence, a charge she angrily denied.

Since then, Ms. Kadeer and the Chinese government have ratcheted up their war of words, each blaming the other for the violence that no one denies claimed the lives of at least 197, while injuring more than 1700.

In July 2009, on a visit to Japan, Ms. Kadeer claimed that “nearly 10,000” Uighurs had disappeared “overnight” in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital. “Where did they go?” she asked during a news conference. “Were they all killed or sent somewhere? The Chinese government should disclose what happened to them.” She did not provide evidence to back up her assertion.

But her comments infuriated China, which summoned Japan’s ambassador in Beijing to express “strong dissatisfaction” with the decision to grant her a visa.

The true story of what happened in Urumqi may never be known. But Ms. Kadeer’s and the Chinese government’s dueling accounts have sowed confusion and created an even wider chasm between the Chinese government and those pressing for greater Uighur autonomy.

In April 2009, Ms. Kadeer published an autobiography, “Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic Battle for Peace with China.” In the New York Times Book Review section, Howard French summarized her life story this way:

“Through sheer force of personality Ms. Kadeer overcomes a bad marriage to an abusive husband, then seeks out and marries a former political prisoner and poet, telling him flatly that “after our wedding, our first task will be to liberate the land.”

“Years, several children and many arduous commercial voyages across China later, having built a fortune (and a big reputation) in department stores and real estate, while she and her second husband dreamed of liberating the land, Ms. Kadeer begins to attract the wooing calls of the party. Her big moment comes in a speech before the Congress in Beijing, in which she boldly switches the approved text to ask: “Is it our fault that the Chinese have occupied our land? That we live under such horrible conditions?”

“If not the first time she had spoken truth to power, it was certainly the beginning of the end. Soon afterward Ms. Kadeer was arrested on her way to a meeting with a member of the United States Congress. She was tried, imprisoned for nearly six years and exiled to the United States.”

via Rebiya Kadeer News – The New York Times.

June 30, 2011
Turkey Seeks Closer Economic and Strategic Ties with China

Turkey Seeks Closer Economic and Strategic Ties with China

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 186

October 15, 2010

By: Saban Kardas

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabo’s official visit to Turkey on October 7-8, marked a new phase in Turkish-Chinese relations. During the joint press briefing with Wen’s Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, both leaders emphasized the importance they place on each other in their external relations and called their flourishing ties a “strategic partnership.” The parties signed eight agreements to develop further cooperation in various areas, including trade, transportation and combating terrorism (Anadolu Ajansi, October 9).

Erdogan preferred to highlight the agreement to switch from dollars to their own currencies in bilateral trade. Turkey also signed a similar agreement with Russia and Iran, its other major trading partners. Through such bilateral agreements, Turkey appears determined to underscore its willingness to pursue independent policies in the global economic and financial order, which has been structured around US primacy. As such, Ankara seeks to readjust to a post-American-led world order, as the existing global order is currently in flux. On many occasions, Turkish leaders have emphasized that the gravity of the global economy has been shifting towards Asia, and that Turkey, which had been traditionally integrated into the Western world, now needs to readjust its economic and political priorities.

It was therefore no surprise that Erdogan described the decision to use mutual currencies as a step to cement the strategic partnership between China, the economic giant which is likely to dominate the world economy in the years to come, and Turkey, an emerging economy which currently ranks 17th. China and Turkey have been the two major economies recovering rapidly from the global financial crisis, which may precipitate greater coordination between both powers in the context of the G-20 summit and other international platforms.

However, there remains a major trade imbalance in China’s favor, which Turkey must quickly address. While Turkey’s imports from China were around $12.7 billion, Turkey’s exports amounted to only $1.6 billion in 2009. Ankara’s strategy is to redress this imbalance through the promotion of Chinese investments in Turkey, increasing tourism from China, and gaining greater exposure for Turkish products in China. Through more intensive cultural exchanges within the next three years, Turkey hopes to accomplish the latter objectives (Today’s Zaman, October 9). However, given China’s track record in achieving a positive trade balance with its partners and its low production costs, it remains to be seen how far Turkey can penetrate Chinese markets.

Erdogan also referred to the prospects of joint projects in energy and nuclear power as yet another aspect of bilateral economic cooperation. Since Ankara signed an agreement with Moscow to construct the country’s first nuclear power plant, preparations have been underway for the construction of additional plants. While Turkey has been in talks with a South Korean company regarding the second plant (EDM, March 24), others, including Japanese companies, have recently approached Ankara on the same issue, raising expectations of growing competition in this sector. Given China’s recent drive to build numerous nuclear reactors, including some of the world’s most advanced, its experience in this field might make it a new entrant into the Turkish energy sector, though there is currently no concrete offer on the table. China has already won various large contracts to build major infrastructure projects, including modern railways in Turkey.

History also plays a role in these flourishing ties, as references to the idea of reviving the historic Silk Road abound. Earlier, Iran also expressed interest in a similar idea, in the context of the Economic Cooperation Organization (www.irna.com, September 24). The Turkish side has worked on various projects to improve the transportation infrastructure in order that goods could flow easily between China and Turkey as well as through Central Asia (www.trt.net.tr, October 9). Such projects, in Ankara’s view, will also serve as the best remedy to bring stability to volatile Central Asia.

However, historical factors also emerge as a source of friction in Sino-Turkish relations, as was demonstrated clearly during Wen’s visit. Following Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s historic visit to China in late June 2009, violent clashes in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region left many Turkic Muslim Uighurs dead in July 2009. Turkish leaders, which had come under pressure for ignoring the plight of Uighurs, moved to criticize Chinese policy in Xinjiang. Erdogan went as far as claiming that the killings amounted to “nearly genocide” (EDM, July 15, 2009). However, in the subsequent period, Sino-Turkish relations rapidly normalized, despite the efforts of the Uighur diaspora in Turkey to pressurize the government (EDM, August 19, 2009). Later, Turkey and China also started discussing cooperation in combating terrorism (Terrorism Monitor, October 1, 2009).

Since China has represented the Uighur resistance as subversive terrorist activities, possibly with ties to the global al-Qaeda network, such cooperation with Turkey has been deemed valuable. In this context, Wen emphasized during the joint press briefing that they discussed boosting bilateral cooperation in fighting terrorism and extremism. Such talks, ironically, took place while Uighur activists organized demonstrations outside to protest against Wen’s visit and Ankara’s policy towards China (Hurriyet, October 9).

Ankara’s position on Uighur demands, which might appear as backpedaling, mirrors Turkey’s earlier experience with the North Caucasus diaspora. In order to preserve the flourishing Turkish-Russian bilateral relationship, Ankara adopted a cooperative approach and restrained the activities of the Caucasian diaspora during the second Chechen war, a policy which continues to date (EDM, April 14). In the otherwise strong relationship with China, Uighur pleas for greater recognition are likely to remain a sore point. Yet, the Turkish government seems determined not to let the Xinjiang issue spoil growing economic and political ties with China.

An apparent indication of this determination came earlier this month, when a Turkish daily reported that in late September and early October, the Turkish and Chinese air forces held joint drills in Turkey’s Central Anatolian province of Konya (Taraf, October 2). Although Turkey refrained from using its more advanced F-16’s and flew only F-4’s upon US expression of concern over protecting sensitive technology, its decision to deepen military ties with China to such a level, the first such exercise China has conducted with a NATO member, reveals much about Turkey’s new strategic priorities.

https://jamestown.org/program/turkey-seeks-closer-economic-and-strategic-ties-with-china/

October 16, 2010
What Cyprus tells us about Turkey

By David Kenner

Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias gave Foreign Policy an interview earlier this week, where he offered an eloquent explanation of the factors that have conspired to leave his country his country divided [sic.], even after 36 years of diplomacy. But his answer to why the average U.S. citizen — or even the average diplomat in Foggy Bottom — should care about Cyprus’s plight was rather unsatisfying. “The United States of America is a bastion of freedom and human rights, isn’t it?” he said. “I call upon the Americans to respect the Cypriots as they respect themselves.”

That’s true, of course. Human rights are inalienable and universal, and if the approximately 1 million Cypriots are forced to live in a bifurcated nation, and the quarter million citizens of northern Cyprus exist in a state of international isolation, that’s an issue that deserves our concern. We should also be concerned with the treatment of the Uighur population in China, the work of Cambodia’s international tribunal, and the ongoing chaos in the Congo. In a world of finite resources, however, concern doesn’t necessarily translate into the United States spending time and money to resolve a problem.

However, there is a good reason that the United States should be paying active attention to the progress, or lack thereof, in resolving the Cyprus dispute. It just has less to do with the plight of Cypriots themselves, and more to do with the fate of Christofias’s primary rival: Turkey. The Turkish government, which is increasingly throwing its weight around in the Middle East, still refuses to recognize the Republic of Cyprus or let its vessels dock in Turkish ports. Cyprus, as a full member of the European Union, can be expected to continue to block Turkey’s EU accession bid until a resolution is reached. The fear is that, if Prime Minister Erdogan’s government finds its path blocked to the West, it will increasingly drift into the orbit of Iran and Syria.

Indeed, the lack of progress on the Cyprus issue is just one instance of how Erdogan’s ambitious foreign policy has been unable to resolve issues closer to its borders. While Erdogan travels the globe blasting Israel for its policy toward Gaza or mediating the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, his diplomats have also made little progress in normalizing relations with Armenia; efforts to resolve the increasingly violent conflict with Turkey’s Kurdish population have also stalled. Issues like Cyprus, Armenia, and Kurdish integration might not command the international spotlight in the same way as Iran and Israel can, but they are arguably more important for Turkey’s long-term well being.

,October 1, 2010

October 2, 2010