US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on countries to offer asylum to ethnic minorities fleeing China’s troubled Xinjiang region during a visit Sunday to oil-rich Kazakhstan — a country that borders the region.
“We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum for those seeking to flee China,” Pompeo said at a press appearance with Kazakh foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi.
“Protect human dignity, just do what is right,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo was meeting top officials in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan as he rounds off a five-nation tour in two countries where Russia and China enjoy privileged interests.
His visit to the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan also saw him meet with Kazakhs who say their family members are detained in Xinjiang, where over a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities are believed to have been incarcerated as part of an unprecedented security crackdown in the region.
Kazakhstan has allowed several ethnic Kazakhs of Chinese citizenship who fled the region to stay in the country, but has not given any of them asylum — a reluctance local activists attribute to Chinese pressure.
Pompeo also commended Kazakhstan’s “quick action” over the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people and infected more than 14,000 in mainland China and beyond, forcing governments around the world to take drastic measures.
Kazakhstan has presently hospitalised over 40 people that returned to the country from China with flu-like symptoms, but has yet to confirm any cases of the disease.
On Sunday evening Pompeo will fly to Uzbekistan, a country of 33 million that is emerging from nearly three decades of isolation.
Pompeo also visited two other ex-Soviet countries -- Belarus and Ukraine -- as part of a trip that began with a stop in Britain.
Ahead of the visit, Pompeo stressed that the Central Asian countries on his itinerary “want to be sovereign and independent”, and Washington had “an important opportunity to help them achieve that”.