Offer asylum to China Uighurs

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday called on countries to offer asylum to ethnic minorities fleeing China’s troubled Xinjiang region during a visit 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.