Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1xinjiang070809.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 8, updated -- While the 150 deaths in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region are covered, with China's consent if not control, in media worldwide, very little is being said at the UN, particularly in its Security Council. Following a July 6 meeting on North Korea, the issue did not arise. Nor July 7 as the Council met about West Africa.
But on July 8, Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Istanbul,"We will put the events happening in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region onto the agenda of the United Nations' Security Council."
In May and June 2009, Inner City Press asked Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and now-retired UN Ambassador Ilkin about putting the issue of over 10,000 dead civilians in Sri Lanka on the Council's agenda. Both demurred.
Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu on May 11 told Inner City Press that the UN should “cooperate with the government of Sri Lanka because we have to cooperate in all efforts against terrorism.”
On June 2, Ambassador Ilkin told Inner City Press emphatically that Sri Lanka is not on the Council's agenda. Video here, Minute 22.
Now, because of the involvement of Muslims in Xinjiang, Turkey's prime minister wants it on the Council's agenda. What standard is Turkey applying?
Inner City Press asked a senior Chinese diplomat at the UN about Erdogan's statement. It is an internal matter, the Chinese diplomat said. After Inner City Press' follow-up, he conceded that Chinese authorities should have handled the beating of Uighur factory workers in South China better: they "didn't do enough to disclose what they knew."
But he insisted, Muslims have rights, but not to kill. He likened it to African American in the United States, saying they have grievances but cannot break the law to express them and "burn down public buildings and kill innocent passersby."
Regarding the Turkish prime minister's vow to the GCC to put the issue on the Council's agenda, the Chinese diplomat smiled. He said, "So be it." Watch this site.
Update of 5:30 p.m., July 8 -- the Chinese Mission to the UN, working quickly, "demarched" the Turkish mission and reportedly the actual Turkish plan or desire to try to put Xinjiang on the Security Council agenda is no more. This is how it works. Watch this site.
