China sees links between Xinjiang militants and Pak terrorists

Xinjiang govt says violent activities by individual terrorists will not affect China-Pakistan friendship.

China today said it has found thousand and one links” between the militants in its volatile Xinjiang province and terrorist groups in Pakistan but bailed out its “all weather friend” saying that Islamabad has promised full support to stamp out terror threat.

“We have certainly discovered that East Turkestan activists and terrorists in our neighboring states have a thousand and one links,” Nur Bekri,chairman of Xinjiang regional government said here today.

“The Pakistani government has also expressed the willingness to maintain China’s sovereignty and core interests in fighting terrorism against China,” he said on the sidelines of the Parliament session here.

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Violent activities by individual terrorists at the same time will not affect the close friendship between China and Pakistan,state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Bekri,as saying.

Significantly,while highlighting Bakri’s comments,Xinhua said,”A group of religious extremists led by militants trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan set fire to a restaurant and randomly killed civilians in Xinjiang’s Kashgar in July last year,leaving six civilians killed and 15 others injured”.

Kashghar is border town near Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

“An investigation found that the group’s leaders had learned how to make explosives and firearms in camps of the terrorist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Pakistan before entering Xinjiang to organise terrorist activities,” it said.