In a move that may expose Pakistan over its inability to stop spreading terrorism from its soil, Chinese government has recently announced that the security along the China-Pakistan border would be further tightened in order to prevent terrorists from entering or leaving the region illegally.
According to media reports, Xinjiang Communist Party leaders expressed fears of militants getting training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and returning to the province to carry out terror attacks.
This announcement came days after five people killed in a terrorist attack in Hotan.
“The government has stepped up its efforts in entry-exit system to curb illegal movement of people across the border,” Xinjiang chairman Shohrat Zakir said at the regional People’s Congress.
“Terrorists who carried out attacks in the region in recent years received training abroad and returned illegally,” Times of India report quoted Aniwar Turson, a Communist Party official, as saying.
Chinese government’s this may move hurt the ‘growing friendship’ between the two countries.
Earlier in December, China blocked India’s request to add the head of the Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad to a U.N. Security Council blacklist of groups linked to al Qaeda.
India has accused Jaish-e-Mohammad and its top leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, of masterminding several attacks, including a deadly assault on an Indian air base in January.
Pakistani security officials interrogated Azhar and his associates after the attack, and said they found no evidence linking him to it.
Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been blacklisted by the 15-nation Security Council, but not Azhar, an Islamist hardliner and long-time foe of India.
