Beijing — Turkish President Erdogan has literally defended China’s right to put Uighur Muslims in concentration camps and said that Muslims live happily in Xinjiang, during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted Erdogan, saying that, “it is a fact that the residents of various ethnic groups in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are living happily under China’s development and prosperity.”
Earlier, Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned Chinese concentration camps terming it as “great shame for humanity”. However, Erdogan has changed the tune to favor China’s one-state policy.
“Turkey stays committed to the one-China policy, Erdogan said, stressing ” Xinhua reported.
“He also expressed the readiness to deepen political mutual trust and strengthen security cooperation with China in opposing extremism,” it added.
Uighurs belong to a Turkic group that shares cultural and linguistic similarities with similar ethnic groups in the Asian region.
United States accused China of putting over three million Uighur Muslims into hundreds of concentration camps where they are subjected to extrajudicial incarceration, torture, communist indoctrination, forced labor and renunciation of faith.
