PRESS RELEASE – For Immediate Release
East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE)
East-Turkistan.Net
contact@East-Turkistan.Net
23 April 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) condemns in the strongest possible terms the so-called “comprehensive strategic partnership” signed between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the genocidal regime of the People’s Republic of China. This act constitutes a profound betrayal of the Uyghur and other Turkic peoples suffering under Chinese occupation in East Turkistan — and a betrayal of the Turkic ideals championed by Azerbaijan’s late President Abulfaz Elchibey, who vowed never to align with Beijing against his Turkic brothers and sisters.
At a time when millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples are imprisoned, enslaved, tortured, raped, and sterilized in concentration camps across East Turkistan — an occupied country and the eastern heartland of the Turkic world which China falsely calls “Xinjiang” (meaning “new territory”) — President Ilham Aliyev has chosen to deepen ties with the architects of this ongoing genocide. In exchange, Azerbaijan receives trade deals, green energy projects, and photo ops with genocidal tyrants — at the cost of its moral soul.
For decades, the Chinese occupation regime has waged total war against the East Turkistani nation. Hundreds of thousands of Uyghur and other Turkic women have been forcibly sterilized to erase future generations, while millions of Turkic babies have been forcibly aborted. Over 1 million Uyghur and other Turkic children have been ripped from their families and placed in indoctrination camps to be raised as Chinese, taught to hate their own Turkic heritage. Entire communities have been razed. Thousands of mosques, cemeteries, and sacred sites have been destroyed. Turkic identity, language, religion, and culture are being systematically eradicated. Since 2014, between 25,000 and 50,000 Uyghur and other Turkic youths are being murdered each year for their organs in a horrific, Chinese state-run industry of forced organ harvesting.
While these atrocities continue daily, the Aliyev regime has chosen not only to remain silent, but to reward Beijing with public validation and “comprehensive strategic partnership.” Ilham Aliyev has shaken hands with the man responsible for ordering the largest massacre and genocide of Turkic peoples in history. Xi Jinping is not a partner — he is a fascist imperialist, a colonizer, and a genocidal dictator whose regime has murdered, enslaved, and erased millions of Turkic peoples. To stand beside him is to abandon every shred of moral legitimacy.
“This is not diplomacy. This is surrender,” said Dr. Mamtimin Ala, President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. “By signing these agreements, Ilham Aliyev has publicly endorsed Beijing’s genocidal colonization of Occupied East Turkistan. He has handed China a propaganda victory and spit in the face of every Turkic person who values liberty over cheap contracts and false promises.”
One of the most grotesque symbols of this betrayal is the newly announced “sister city” agreement between Nakhchivan and Urumchi. Urumchi is not a city of friendship — it is the capital of Chinese occupation in East Turkistan, a hub of enslavement, digital surveillance, and colonial repression, soaked in the silence of millions of disappeared Uyghur and other Turkic lives. This agreement legitimizes Chinese occupation and colonization and desecrates the memory of those still fighting for liberty and independence.
“It was the dream of Elchibey, and the duty of every Turkic nation, to support East Turkistan’s struggle to restore its independence,” said Salih Hudayar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Security. “Instead, Azerbaijan has embraced the enemies of the Turkic nation. The Aliyev regime bows to China, even as China persists in eradicating East Turkistan and its people. This betrayal will not be forgotten.”
The ETGE also strongly condemns Azerbaijan’s open embrace of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — an entity built by Beijing to crush East Turkistan’s independence movement, to monitor and silence Uyghurs abroad, and to wage genocide and state terrorism under the false banner of “counterterrorism.” The SCO was designed to eradicate resistance to Chinese colonization and occupation. Azerbaijan’s alignment with this oppressive structure marks a shameful departure from the revolutionary legacy of Mammad Amin Rasulzade and Abulfaz Elchibey, who stood firmly for Turkic unity, independence, and truth.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile calls on the people of Azerbaijan and on all Turkic nations to recognize this moment for what it is: a betrayal not just of East Turkistan, but of every ideal the Turkic world claims to hold dear. This is the time to choose — between liberty and tyranny, between solidarity and silence.
We call on the international community — governments, institutions, human rights bodies, and free people everywhere — to hold China and its strategic partners accountable for their direct role in genocide, occupation, and colonial expansion. No amount of economic interest or political convenience can excuse complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity.
Azerbaijan’s Aliyev regime must be condemned, and its agreements with Beijing must be recognized for what they are: a shameful alliance with a genocidal empire. Those who support China’s war against the East Turkistani nation must be exposed, isolated, and remembered in history not as neutral actors — but as collaborators in the destruction of a people.
Justice for East Turkistan will come — and when it does, we will remember who stood with us, and who stood against us.