Turkey has renewed its criticism of China's treatment of its Muslim minority group, with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu calling on the country to make a distinction "between terrorists and innocent people."
In an address to a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting on Monday, Çavuşoğlu said Turkey recognized "China's right to combat terrorism," but urged the country to respect freedom of religion and to safeguard Uighurs' and other Muslims' cultural identities.
Turkey, which shares cultural and religious ties with the Uighurs, has been the only majority Muslim country to criticize Beijing over a wide-ranging crackdown of religion and minority languages.
The Foreign Ministry called China's treatment of Uighurs "a great cause of shame for humanity."
Çavuşoğluin his speech also criticized Israel, saying human rights violations against Palestinians have "reached an alarming level."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the first Muslim leader to condemn Beijing, describing China's treatment of its Uighur population as "a great cause of shame for humanity" last month and asking it to close the "concentration camps."
China, meanwhile, is lobbying hard to thwart scrutiny of the mass detention camps for Uighurs at the U.N. Human Rights Council's main annual session opening on Monday, diplomats and activists said.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has defended China's use of concentration camps for Muslims, saying it was Beijing's "right," the Telegraph reported, Friday.
"China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremization work for its national security," the crown prince, who is in China signing multi-million trade deals much to the chagrin of his Western allies, told Chinese state television.
U.N. experts say the camps hold a million Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language and other Muslims. China has rejected accusations of mistreatment. The Uighur are an ethnic Turkic group that practices Islam and lives in western China and parts of Central Asia.
Beijing has accused the Uighur minority of supporting terrorism.
