Turk minister urges Chinese boycott over Xinjiang

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's Industry Minister urged Turks Thursday to boycott Chinese goods in protest at ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang, but a spokeswoman said this was the minister's personal view and not government policy.

The minister, Nihat Ergun, told a meeting of industrial exporters in the town of Yozgat in central Turkey that Turks should put pressure on China to end violence by not buying Chinese goods, Turkish media said.

Ministry spokeswoman Devlet Arik confirmed the minister's words but said they were his personal views and not the government's position.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan Wednesday said predominantly Muslim Turkey will ask the U.N. Security Council to discuss ways of ending violence between Uighurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang, where 156 people have been killed.

Uighurs are a Turkic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with central Asia. Pan-Turkic nationalist groups in Turkey see Uighurs as the easternmost frontier of Turkic ethnicity.

(Reporting by Pinar Aydinli; Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Janet Lawrence)