China defends blocking Masood ban at UN, denies US allegations of sheltering terrorists

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ Defending its repeated attempts to block the listing of JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN, China on Friday refuted US allegation that its action amounted to protecting violent Islamic groups from sanctions. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday denounced China of its “shameful hypocrisy” toward Muslims, saying China abuses more than a million Muslims at home, but on the other it protects violent Islamic terrorist groups from sanctions at the UN.”

Pompeo had said it in apparent reference to China’s move to block India’s proposal at the United Nations to designate Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Azhar as a global terrorist. Reacting to this, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here on Friday that if that is so, the country that had put most technical holds in the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the Security Council should have been sheltering more terrorists.

At the UN Sanctions committee, the practice of putting technical hold is in line with the rules of the Committee, he asserted. Without directly referring to the US, Geng said, “If a certain country accuses China of sheltering terrorists by putting technical hold, does that mean all the countries that put such holds are sheltering terrorists? If this makes sense then shall we say the country that put most hold is the biggest shelter of terrorists??”