The incident recalls the furore that followed Erdogan's haranguing of Israel's president over Israel's Gaza offensive at the Davos forum in January when he told Shimon Peres: "When it comes to killing you know very well how to kill".

    That outburst attracted strong approval among Turks and in the Arab world, but was also seen as potentially damaging for predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey's role as a Middle East mediator.

    His latest comments have drawn an indignant response in China, and Turkish commentators are now voicing concerns that his undiplomatic approach could harm the relations which Turkey
is trying to develop with the world's third-biggest economy.

    The timing was unfortunate. President Abdullah Gul last month became the first Turkish president to visit China in 15 years, signing $1.5 billion worth of trade deals, according to Turkish media. He also visited Xinjiang during his trip.

    Veteran Turkish political commentator Sami Kohen said it was natural for the Turkish people to show their sensitivity and anger over developments concerning their Uighur ethnic kin.

    "But state policy must be more cautious and moderate. Speeches and reactions since the start of the Xinjiang crisis have created serious doubts on whether a harmonious and consistent policy has been set out," Kohen said in Milliyet newspaper.

    "It was seen with different incidents in the past that over-the-top expressions have put Turkish diplomacy in a difficult position and did not have any practical results," he said.

    The genocide label is particularly sensitive in Turkey, which strongly refutes Armenian claims that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One constituted genocide.

    The English-language China Daily has urged Erdogan to take back his remarks, describing them as interference in China's internal affairs. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the accusation did not make sense.

    On July 5, Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in the regional capital Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China.

    Han Chinese launched revenge attacks two days later in what was Xinjiang's worst ethnic violence in decades. The death toll included 46 Uighurs, a Turkic people who are largely Muslim and share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told his Turkish counterpart by telephone on Sunday the Urumqi riots were a grave crime orchestrated by the "three evil forces", Xinhua news agency said, referring to extremism, separatism and terrorism.

    Commentator Cengiz Candar said the situation called for cool heads, given China's permanent membership of the United Nation's Security Council, which gives it veto powers in issues concerning Turkey such as the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, neighbouring Iraq and Iran.

    "Now is the time to overcome the 'tension' which has emerged between Turkey and China with a diplomacy which is cool, quiet and patient," Candar said in the liberal daily Radikal.

    That diplomacy could face a fresh test in the near future after Erdogan said last week Turkey would grant a visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who is based in the United States.

     China has blamed the ethnic unrest on exiled Uighur separatists, especially Kadeer, who denies the charge.

Its show, entitled "Penitents Compete," will bring together spiritual guides from Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism who try to convert a group of non-believers. Those who get religion win a pilgrimage to a holy site of the faith they've chosen -- Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.

But the show, due to debut in September, has run into some unexpected trouble. The religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey have refused to provide an imam for the show, which they say will cheapen religion. Read the whole story here.

Do you think a program like this is offensive?

(Photo: Popular German TV gameshow "Wetten, dass...?"-- "Bet that..?" -- on 22 Jan 2005/Christian Charisius)

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