China hits out at US transfer of terrorists to Slovakia
Print Edition
China has criticized the United States for sending the last three Chinese inmates at Guantanamo Bay to Slovakia, saying they are terrorists who pose a real security danger.
Yusef Abbas, Saidullah Khalik, and Hajiakbar Abdul Ghuper were freed earlier this week as part of Washington’s efforts to close the prison camp, and were the last of 22 Uygurs captured in 2001 after the US invasion of Afghanistan and kept at the US base in Cuba.
Slovakia’s Interior Ministry confirmed it would take in the three.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the three were members of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which the United Nations lists as a terrorist group and which China accuses of having separatist aims in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
“They are genuine terrorists. They not only threaten China’s security, they will threaten the security of the country that receives them,” he told a daily news briefing in Beijing.
“We are firmly opposed to the US transfer of these suspects to a third country, and we are also opposed to any other countries’ acceptance of them,” Qin said.
“China hopes the relevant countries can earnestly perform their international obligations, refrain from offering asylum to terrorists, and transfer them to China at an early date.”
Qin also criticized a recent US State Department call for Chinese security forces to “exercise restraint” following the latest outbreak of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang.
“These remarks neglect the facts and are feeble,” he said. “We urge the United States to abandon their double standards when it comes to terrorism, and immediately stop saying one thing and doing another, to avoid sending the wrong message to violent terrorist forces.”
The US said it was grateful to Slovakia for its “humanitarian gesture.”
Most of the Uygurs at Guantanamo were captured near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in 2001, and were believed to have trained with the Taliban. But US officials say they pose no threat to the US.
In 2008, a US court ordered that they be released. Many have since been resettled in El Salvador, Switzerland, Bermuda, Albania and the Pacific island nation of Palau.
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