Erdogan welcomed as first Turkish Prime Minister to visit Urumqi

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the first Turkish prime minister to visit Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, was met on Sunday by a cheering crowd of Uyghur Turks celebrating his visit to the city. During his visit, he was accompanied by his wife Emine Erdogan, his daughter Sumeyye Erdogan, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz, Transportation, Maritime and Communication Minister Binali Yildirim, Culture and Tourism Minister Ertugrul Gunay, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy leader Omer Celik, as well as a large delegation of many businessmen and journalists. Erdogan toured the Urumqi international public bazaar and an industrial factory, TBEA, which manufactures wind and solar energy systems, and toured the Gold Wind Company which produces wind turbines. Speaking to journalists, Erdogan said that he had invited the executives of Gold Wind to Turkey to make investments. "We have been promised that executives of the turbine factory would come to Turkey and seek opportunities for investments," Erdogan added. He also visited Zhan Chunxian, the secretary of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and met with Nur Bekri, the chairman of the autonomous region. Following his contacts, Erdogan attended a dinner which was hosted by Bekri in his honor, during which Erdogan said that economic and political cooperation between the two countries should be boosted and the Silk Road should be made more active through trains, and expressed his gladness over a recovery in the rights of Uyghur people.