Turkish president wraps up China trip

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

President Gül attended a lunch hosted in his honor by the Chinese Communist Party vice secretary for Guandong, Liu Yupu, in Shenzen. He also met with Turkish citizens and told Turkish businessmen operating in the city that Turkey will open a consulate in the city of Guangzhou, 200 kilometers from Shenzen.

Gül also said he informed the Chinese authorities about Turkish Airlines’ willingness to launch scheduled flights to Guangzhou every day, adding that Chinese authorities welcomed the request. He praised the improvements in Shenzen that over the last 15 to 20 years have revealed the pace of development in China. "What we come across here resembles that of New York and Manhattan," Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying.

He also highlighted the point that Turkey and China used to be neighbors about 1,000 years ago, adding that the two countries are allies at the moment. "You are far away from Turkey, but the distances no longer matter," he said. Gül also advised Turkish citizens residing in China to "be happy and make use of the opportunities in the best way possible."

After his consultations in Guandong, President Gül was set to proceed to the next stop of his visit, Urumchi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, as the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press. Xinjiang is home to a number of different ethnic groups, many of them Turkic, the largest of which is the Uighur people. On Saturday, Gül visited the Terracotta Warriors and Horses in the mausoleum of Qinshihuang, the first emperor of a united China, Huaqing Hotspring, an imperial park of the Tang Dynasty, and a mosque in the city, in Xi'an, capital of China’s northwestern Shaanxi Province. Gül said that Xi'an was the starting point of the Silk Road while Istanbul was the end.