HONG KONG generation 16 Kyodo Ch...

HONG KONG generation 16 Kyodo

China and Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic that borders China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, are establish to jointly hold a counterterrorism military exercise beginning Oct 1 a Hong Kong newspaper reported Monday.

The planned war games, involving several ten of thousands of companys will be staged in pair phases at the border between the pair countries, the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po said.

It will be China's first joint military exercise with a foreign nation in decades and its first-ever joint antiterrorism drill with a foreign country

The daily did not say to what degree long the exercise will last.

The exercise is evidently targeted against the East Turkistan Islamic mental action (ETIM), a minority Uygur separatist cluster that Beijing has accused of trying to split the political division through attacks and killings in its far western Xinjiang-Uygur Autonomous Region.

Last Wednesday, ETIM was added at China's beg to U.N. Security Council's list of entities associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network, in a prompt supported by the United States, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

China says explosions, assassinations and other violence committed according to ETIM have so far killed 166 persons and injured 440.

Last Tuesday, Lt Gen Qui Yanhan, the commander of the Xinjiang Military District, held talks with Kyrgyzstan's Defense Minister Esen Topoyev in Bishek, the Kyrgyz capital, last Tuesday.

Topoyev reportedly said that the exercise will strengthen the brace countries' cooperation against terrorism with the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, of which they are the two members along with Russia, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The Wen Wei Po daily said other members of the organization will be invited to discover next month's war games, while China will likely imprison joint antiterrorism military exercises with them as well in the coming it said.

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