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Erdogan’s opposition accuses the Turkish government of extraditing Uighurs asylum seekers to China in exchange for the vaccine, writes Business Insider.
The indictment is based on the fact that a shipment of the Sinovac coronavirus vaccine arrived from China only 30 times late, instead of December 11, and China ratified a 2017 extradition agreement earlier this month, which the Turkish leadership does not want to approve. According to the convention, the Turks must extradite people who are being processed in China and vice versa. This has been interpreted by opposition politicians to mean that China wants to pressure Ankara to release Uighurs who have fled the country by freezing the shipment of vaccines.
In recent years, China has launched a targeted attack against indigenous Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province, arresting millions of community members, forcing them into re-education camps and unpaid work, and even sterilizing women.
Many have fled to Turkey, home to the world’s largest Uighur diaspora, some 50,000. The Turkish-Chinese rapprochement poses a threat to those who do not yet have Turkish citizenship and Ankara cannot protect them.
Several Turkish opposition politicians in parliament have accused the government of being willing to extradite Uighur refugees to China to allow coronavirus vaccines to enter the country safely.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu replied that while China had asked Turkey to extradite the Uighur refugees, Turkey had rejected the request. Çavuşoğlu also denied that the 2017 extradition convention has been ratified in exchange for the vaccines.
Erdogan openly welcomed members of the Uighur minority into the country between 2009 and 2015, but in the years since then there have been several signs that he has changed his position and wants to be friendlier to China.
In July 2019, for example, Turkey did not sign a letter from the UN Human Rights Council condemning China in protest of the forcible detention of Uighurs.
The same month, Chinese state media said Erdogan told Chinese President Xi Jinping that Uighurs are happy in Xi’an. Ankara later said that Erdogan was misunderstood, but China said no.
And in early 2020, the Turkish ruling party made it impossible for the opposition to take the initiative to establish a committee to investigate disregard for human rights in Xi’an.
Despite all this, Kamer Artiş, a Uighur activist living in Turkey, told Business Investor that they were confident that the opposition protest would be enough to prevent Turkish leaders from ratifying the convention. (Business Insider)
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