April 28, 2016•Update: April 28, 2016
By Mahmut Atanur & Yusuf Hatip
BEIJING
Turkey’s minister of foreign affairs has criticized China and other countries for "not being not fair" in their issuing of travel warnings against Turkey, on the sidelines of a conference with Asian foreign ministers.
China's embassy in Ankara first issued a travel warning to its citizens in July 2015 after some tourists were attacked and harassed during protests in Istanbul in support of members of a Muslim Turkic ethnic group that Thailand had returned to Beijing.
After a meeting with China’s Deputy Prime Minister Vang Yang on Thursday, Mevlut Cavusoglu -- Turkey’s top diplomat, in Beijing for the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) -- touched on the warnings.
“Travel warnings against Turkey, the general warning is not right and we said it is unfair,” he said, adding that Vang had told him that a committee will be sent by China to review the warning.
The Muslim ethnic group -- the Uighur -- is one of the many that exist in the violence-prone far western Chinese region of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, that Turkish people consider to be East Turkestan.
Hundreds of people have died in unrest in Xinjiang and other parts of China over the past three years -- a "struggle against Islamist militants" that China has called to be included in the world's war on terror.
"When it comes to Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region we say ‘one Chinese state’," underlined Cavusoglu.
"Our cultural and kinship bonds with our brothers in there are not hidden. We tell this to Chinese people frankly," he said, adding that Turkey's interest and bond with its brothers in Xinjiang is "not a threat" against China’s security or territorial integrity.
Cavusoglu said that no matter where it occurs terrorism will always be terrorism.
“There is no distinction with terrorism for us. It does not matter which religion, race or region it comes from. Especially our sensitivities on Daesh, and the foreign terrorist fighters that join Daesh are known."
Cavusoglu said that during the meeting with China's deputy PM he also talked about trade, economic relations and energy issues, and underlined that Turkey runs a trade deficit with Beijing.
"There are steps we took to make it more balanced [for Turkey] especially on agriculture products," he said.
*Anadolu Agency correspondent Hatice Vildan Topaloglu contributed to this report from Ankara
