China demands U.S. send Guantanamo Uighurs back

Bangulzai SG

Beijing said Thursday that the 17 Chinese Muslims the United States is sending to Pacific island nation of Palau are terrorists and should be handed back to China instead.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the United States should "stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country, so as to expatriate them to China at an early date."

Palau President Johnson Toribiong said earlier in the week that Palau had agreed to a U.S. request to temporarily resettle the detainees, who were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 but later determined by the Pentagon to not be enemy combatants after being detained in Guantanamo Bay.

"China also opposes any country taking any of these terrorist suspects," Qin said. He did not say if China would take any action in response to the U.S. move.

Beijing says the detainees are members of extremist groups working to separate the far western region of Xinjiang from China.

Palau does not have diplomatic relations with China, which may make it harder for Beijing to pressure Palau. Instead, it has ties with Taiwan.

A former U.S. trust territory in the Pacific, Palau has retained close ties with the United States since independence in 1994 and is entitled to U.S. protection under an accord.

Bangulzai SG

BEIJING (Reuters) - China demanded on Thursday that the United States return 17 Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay to China and not send them to the Pacific island nation of Palau, which has agreed to accept the detainees.

Palau's government said it would accept the detainees, known as Uighurs, both as a humanitarian gesture and to help President Barack Obama fulfil his promise to close the controversial prison for foreign terrorism suspects on the U.S. Naval base in Cuba.

Many in the U.S. Congress oppose transferring them to U.S. soil when the prison is closed.

China sees the 17 as terrorist suspects, and has repeatedly called for their return.

"China demands the U.S. side implement relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council as well as live up to international anti-terrorism obligations, stop the transfer of these suspects to any third country and repatriate them to China," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang told a news conference.

"China opposes any third country accepting these suspects," he added.

"The 17 Chinese terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo are members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which has been listed as a terrorist group by the UN Security Council," Qin said.

The Uighur detainees come from China's largely Muslim region of Xinjiang in the far west, a vastly different landscape from Palau, whose visitor's bureau describes it as the "world's most beautiful tropical paradise" with pristine beaches and unspoiled reefs and caves.

Despite being cleared of terrorism allegations, the Uighurs remained stuck at Guantanamo Bay while U.S. officials hunted for a country that would take them in.

The group of Uighurs had been ordered by a U.S. federal judge to be freed in the United States, but an appeals court ruled in April that the judge did not have the authority to give such an order.

Chinese officials have said Uighur militants seeking an independent "East Turkestan" are among the biggest threats to the country's stability, a key issue ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic on October 1.

But human rights groups and Uighur activists say Beijing grossly exaggerates the threat to justify harsh controls.

(Reporting by Liu Zhen and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Bill Tarrant)