A group of 173 ethnic Uyghur women and children have arrived in Turkey for resettlement after being detained for more than a year by Thai immigration authorities for illegally entering the country while fleeing persecution in northwestern China’s restive Xinjiang region, sources said Wednesday.

Seyit Tumturk, vice president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, told RFA’s Uyghur Service that the group had arrived at the airport in the commercial capital Istanbul early on Tuesday.

“They make up a portion of the Uyghurs who were arrested in March 2014 in Thailand,” said Tumturk, who is also chairman of Turkey-based Uyghur organization the East Turkestan Culture and Cooperation Association.

“They are mostly women and kids—around 120 kids and about 50 women. Hopefully, the men [still in detention] will be granted this kind of chance in the near future.”

Tumturk said that after arriving at the airport around 6:00 a.m., the Uyghurs’ documentation was quickly processed and they were able to “enter into Turkey safely,” with some staying in Istanbul and others headed to Kayseri province, where many Uyghurs have settled.

Gungor Yavuzarslan, the president of the International Journalists Association of Turkish-Speaking Countries, was quoted by the Turkish Radio and Television (TRT) network Wednesday confirming that 173 Uyghurs had arrived in the country a day earlier, and calling their acceptance a “diplomatic victory for Turkey on the international stage.”

A Uyghur scholar living in the capital Ankara also confirmed the group’s arrival to RFA, but said Turkish officials had sought to downplay the move amid ongoing internal political negotiations.

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