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China: The flag of the Turkish-Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan (First East Turkestan Republic), Xinjiang, 1933-1934

China: The flag of the Turkish-Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan (First East Turkestan Republic), Xinjiang, 1933-1934

The First Eastern Turkestan Republic (ETR), or Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (TIRET), also Republic of Uyghurstan, (Sherqiy Türkistan Yislam Jumuhuriyiti or Sarki Turk Islam Cumhuriyeti) was a short-lived breakaway would-be Islamic republic founded in 1933. It was centered on the city of Khotan in what is today the People's Republic of China-administered Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Although primarily the product of the independence movement of the Uyghur population living there, the ETR was Turkish-ethnic in character, including Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in its government and its population.

With the sacking of Kashgar in 1934 by Hui warlords nominally allied with the Kuomintang government in Nanjing, the first ETR was effectively eliminated. Its example, however, served to some extent as inspiration for the founding of a Second East Turkestan Republic a decade later, and continues to influence modern Uyghur nationalist support for the creation of an independent East Turkestan.

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