US removes shadowy group condemned by China from terror list

The United States has removed from its list of terror groups a shadowy faction regularly blamed by China to justify its harsh crackdown in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang region.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was revoking the designation of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as a "terrorist organisation" -- in a notice in the Federal Register, which publishes new US laws and rules.

Beijing has regularly blamed ETIM for attacks as it justifies its measures in Xinjiang, where rights groups say that one million or more Uighurs or other Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim people are incarcerated in camps.

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"ETIMwas removed from the list because, for more than a decade, there has been no credible evidence thatETIMcontinues to exist," a State Department spokesperson said.

The administration of George W Bush in 2004 added ETIM, also sometimes called the Turkestan Islamic Party, to a blacklist as it found common cause with China in the US-led "war on terror."

Scholars, however, say that China has produced little evidence ETIM was an organised group or that it is to blame for attacks in Xinjiang, which separatists call East Turkestan.

The Washington-based Uighur Human Rights Project called the State Department decision "long overdue" and a "definitive rejection of China's claims."

But China's foreign ministry spokesman on Friday expressed China's "strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the US decision", urging the US to "stopbackpedaling oninternational counter-terrorism cooperation".

China has acknowledged camps in Xinjiang but describes them as vocational centers meant to reduce the allure of Islamic radicalism.

While experts have doubted a role of ETIM, China has suffered a series of attacks that authorities blamed on Uighur separatists.

Activists say that China is trying to forcibly integrate Uighurs by indoctrinating them with communist ideology and making them renounce Islamic customs.

ETIM was listed on the US Terrorism Exclusion List, which affects entry of people into the country, but was never hit with the tougher designation of Foreign Terrorist Organisation.

(with inputs from AFP)