In what comes as a shocking development for China, the new Syrian government has started to appoint foreign fighters, especially from the banned Uygur militant group ‘the East Turkestan Islamic Movement’, to senior military ranks. Notably, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is active in China’s volatile Xinjiang province.
China’s permanent representative to the UN, Fu Cong, at the UN Security Council Briefing on Syria on Wednesday said expressed concern over the development saying that the Syrian Army has recently granted senior military ranks to a number of foreign terrorist fighters, which includes the post of the head of Council, a listed terrorist organisation, the Turkistan Islamic Party, also known as the ETIM.
China urges Syria to fulfil counter-terrorism obligations
The Chinese representative urged Syria to fulfil its counter-terrorism obligations. It asked Syria to prevent any terrorist forces from using Syrian territory to threaten the security of other countries, according to official media reports.
According to some reports, the new Syrian regime headed by de-facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has appointed 50 new military officials of which six were foreign fighters, including that of ETIM.
