Are Uyghurs Running A Terrorist Network In Turkey And China?
Martin McCauley writes: A Turkish Minister of State paid a visit to China not long ago to discuss matters of ‘mutual interest’. He was the first Turkish senior government official to visit the Middle Kingdom since the Urumqi riots, in the Xinjiang autonomous region, last July. Official figures put the number of people who died in these riots at 197. Turks and Uyghurs share common ethnic and linguistic roots. After the People’s Republic reclaimed Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) in 1949, Uyghurs began to leave. There are now about 80,000 living in Turkey. There are two extremist Uyghur organisations present in Turkey: The East Turkestan Liberation Organisation (DTKO) and the East Turkestan Islamic Organisation. However, the latter now appears to be inactive since the death of its founder in 2003. China now lists all Uyghur protests as acts of terrorism. ‘With explosions targeting civilians, assassinations, arson attacks, poisoning and al-Qaeda style video footage threatening dire actions, t