Turkey's top diplomat vowed today to root out militants plotting against China, signalling closer cooperation against suspected Uighur militants hailing from China's far west who have long been a sore point in bilateral relations.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters during a visit to Beijing that his government would treat threats to China's security as threats to itself and would not allow any "anti-China activity inside Turkey or territory controlled by Turkey."
Cavusoglu's tough comments, which came after a meeting and warm handshakes with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, were seen as referring to China's Uighur ethnic minority, a Turkic people who share cultural and linguistic ties with Anatolian Turks.
Turkey and China have in recent years pledged to cooperate on security and counter-terrorism efforts, though experts say such ties are also balanced by mutual suspicion.
Relations between Ankara and Beijing have been strained by Turkey's support for groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - a China ally - and its sheltering of Uighur refugees.
Human rights groups have long accused China of oppressing its roughly 10 million Uighurs with severe restrictions on language, culture and religion and inflaming a cycle of resentment and radicalisation.
Hundreds have died in Xinjiang in violent clashes in recent years and China now keeps the region, with a land area comparable to Iran, under a constant lockdown with massive policing and surveillance efforts that activists say are rife with abuse.
Thousands of Uighurs have fled China in recent years to seek asylum in Turkey, with many traveling on to Syria to join Islamic militant groups or simply to escape persecution and find a new home.
In response, China has pressed allies including Russia and Syria to share intelligence about Uighur militants fighting in Syria and help avert their return to strike at China.
Hundreds of Uighurs, if not far more, are believed to have joined the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front while others have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group or sided with smaller militant factions in the Syrian conflict.
Cavusoglu endorsed China's efforts today, adding that Turkey "fully appreciated all the actions China has taken" in combating the Islamic State group as well as reaching a political settlement in the Syrian War.
Wang, meanwhile, said that "deepening our collaboration on anti-terror and security is the most central part" of the two countries' relationship.
With President Xi Jinping keen to play a leadership role in global affairs, China has swiftly expanded its presence in the Middle East and offered itself as a mediator in the region's conflicts. But it has not shied from calling for help, either.
At Beijing's request, Egyptian police in recent weeks rounded up scores of Muslim Chinese students studying in at Al-Azhar University and deported them to China, sparking panic among Chinese living in Cairo who belong to the Uighur, Hui and Kazakh ethnic minorities.
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