UPDATE - ‘Willing to promote healthy relations with Türkiye,’ Chinese leader congratulates Turkish president over reelection

UPDATES WITH STATEMENT BY CHINESE PRESIDENT; CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK

By Emre Aytekin and Riyaz ul Khaliq

BEIJING, China/ISTANBUL, Türkiye (AA) - Extending greetings to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his historic reelection on Sunday, China’s President Xi Jinping Monday said he is willing to “promote sustained, healthy, and stable development” of China-Türkiye bilateral relations.

In a Telegram message to Erdogan, Xi stressed that China and Türkiye are both “major developing countries and emerging market countries and share extensive common interests.”

“In recent years, the China-Türkiye strategic cooperative relationship has maintained a momentum of development, and practical cooperation in various fields has made positive progress,” said Xi, according to a statement by China's Foreign Ministry.

“I am willing to work with President Erdogan to understand and support each other on issues concerning each other’s core interests and major concerns, so as to promote the sustained, healthy, and stable development of China-Türkiye strategic cooperative relations,” said the Chinese president.

Earlier Monday, China extended greetings to Erdogan on his reelection on Sunday as the nation’s leader.

“China expresses its congratulations to President Erdogan on his reelection,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.

“We support Türkiye to follow the development path in line with its own national realities, and we believe that it will achieve new successes in development under the leadership of President Erdogan,” Mao said.

According to unofficial results, incumbent President Erdogan won the race with 52.16%, while opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu received 47.84% of the vote.

More than 64.1 million Turkish citizens were registered to vote, including over 1.92 million who earlier cast their ballots at overseas polling stations. The voter turnout was around 85% on Sunday’s election.

On May 14, no candidate crossed the 50% threshold in the first round, triggering the presidential runoff, although Erdogan took the lead with 49.52%.​​​​​​ On that day, Erdogan’s electoral alliance also won a majority of seats in parliament.