The statement below is attributed to the East Turkistan Government in Exile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Security
The East Turkistan Government in Exile issues its strongest and most unequivocal condemnation of the alleged plan, revealed by journalist Turan Kislakci, that the Government of Türkiye may transfer three million Uyghurs from East Turkistan to Türkiye under a so-called “labor agreement” with the People’s Republic of China. These allegations surfaced following President Erdogan’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin and his discussions with Xi Jinping.
Such a plan, even as an allegation, does not constitute “humanitarian relief.” It represents direct participation in genocide and ethnic cleansing. By uprooting millions of Uyghurs from their homeland, Türkiye would be aiding Beijing in its campaign to erase East Turkistan and the Uyghur people, continue and complete its 75-year-long colonial project, flood the land with Chinese colonists, and permanently secure China’s illegal occupation, in violation of international law and the UN Genocide Convention.
Since the invasion of East Turkistan on October 12, 1949, Beijing has systematically pursued a campaign of occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, and demographic transformation aimed at extinguishing East Turkistan and its people. The alleged plan with Türkiye would serve as the final stage of this project, enabling China to remove Uyghurs in mass numbers while entrenching Chinese colonialism. Türkiye already bears responsibility through its silence, economic ties, and political partnership with Beijing. To even entertain such an arrangement moves Türkiye from passive complicity to active collaboration in crimes against humanity. If Türkiye truly requires labor, it must recall its more than five million citizens living abroad in over 152 countries, rather than assisting China in the ongoing colonization of East Turkistan and the genocide and ethnic cleansing of its people.
If the Government of Türkiye led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party are sincere about providing humanitarian relief to the Uyghur people, they must end their silence and complicity by raising the East Turkistan national question at the upcoming 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, condemning China’s colonization, genocide, and occupation, urging the international community to support the East Turkistani people’s struggle to recover their independence, and demanding accountability and justice for the crimes committed against East Turkistan and its people.
If Türkiye proceeds with any plan to assist China in ethnically cleansing East Turkistan, the consequences of such a betrayal will extend far beyond East Turkistan itself. By helping to depopulate East Turkistan of its Uyghur population, Türkiye would open the way for deeper Chinese expansion into Central Asia and beyond, threatening the sovereignty of all Turkic nations and endangering the security of the entire Eurasian region.
The East Turkistan Government in Exile calls upon the international community to categorically oppose any plans that would contribute to the ethnic cleansing, genocide, and colonization of East Turkistan and facilitate China’s imperialist ambitions. Governments, parliaments, international organizations, and civil society must act decisively. Silence is complicity. Inaction is consent. East Turkistan and its people will never submit. Our struggle to restore our national freedom, dignity, and independence will endure until justice prevails.
—Salih Hudayar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Security of the East Turkistan Government in Exile