dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

East Turkistan After July 5/ Seyit TumturkTurkey presented a strong reaction against China over the Urumchi incidents.The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, stated that incidents in EastTurkistan had reached the level of violence, and that incidents should immediatelybe stopped and that the perpetrators should be tried before the courts. PrimeMinister Erdoğan also stated that they would bring the issue onto the agenda ofthe UN Security Council, on which Turkey is a temporary member. The statementthat Prime Minister Erdoğan made that these events were “simply genocide” 6was regarded as “harsh” by some politicians and experts in Turkey, however, thestatement was very-well appreciated in many Muslim countries, including Iran.The praises and superlatives used by some Iranian columnists for the Turkishapproach towards the Urumchi incidents support the above-mentioned ideas.Sadık Zibakalam describes the attitude of Prime Minister Erdoğan as follows:“The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, neither claimed anyleadership for the Muslim world nor declared himself as the guardian of innocentpeople throughout the world. He did not state that he would stand againstthe imperialist powers, nor did he refuse to recognize the role of internationalorganizations as UN, Security Council and IAEA, nor did he organize a symbolicfuneral for the Egyptian Muslim woman who was killed in Germany. However,he acted in a just and honest way in his foreign policy and defended his valuesso honourably that he made objections to the Chinese leader concerning theUrumchi incidents, in which more than a hundred Muslim people were massacred;he described the incidents as “simply genocide”. He is so sensitive to the Muslimpeople that he also objected to Russia over the killing of Muslim Chechens.” 7People in Turkey reacted in various ways to the massacre of the Uyghur peoplein China. Symbolic funeral prayers were performed for the Uyghur people whowere massacred by the Chinese after the Friday prayers in mosques countrywide, 8including at the Kocatepe and Fatih Mosques. 9 Some NGOs demonstrated inTaksim Square in order to condemn and protest against the Uyghur massacre. 10The Saadet Partisi reacted strongly against the Chinese massacre of theUyghur Turks and conducted a demonstration in Istanbul on 12 July 2009. 11250 NGOs, sports organisations, trade unions, charitable organisations, not tomention thousands of ordinary people participated in the demonstration thatwas held in Çağlayan Square. 12 Protests against the Chinese administration353