China denounced the United States on Thursday for sending the last three Uyghur terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Slovakia.

"China has always requested the US transfer the Chinese inmates detained in Guantanamo Bay detention center back to China and firmly opposes the US decision to send these detainees to a third nation for settlement, as well as any countries that receive them," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular briefing.

He stated that the Uyghur terrorists, who are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a terrorist group listed by the UN Security Council, were not only a threat to China's security but also the security of the receiving nation. China also hopes the relevant countries act within international obligations and transfer these terrorists back to China, he added.

Most of the Uyghurs at Guantanamo were captured near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in late 2001 and were believed to have trained with the Taliban. However, US officials deemed they pose no threat to the US, Reuters reported.

In 2008, a US court ordered that they be released. They have been resettled in El Salvador, Switzerland, Bermuda, Albania, and Palau.

Qin urged the US to abandon double standards and avoid sending the wrong signal to violent terrorist forces.

Li Wei, director of the Center for Counter-Terrorism Study with China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times that the responses toward recent terrorist attacks in Russia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as well as the terrorist incident at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, also showed that the US government's double standards on tackling terrorist issues were still obvious.

Based on the cases of Albania and Palau receiving Uyghur inmates once detained in Guantanamo Bay, the aim for Slovakia to receive these terrorists would likely be to obtain funds from the US, Li noted.

 Global Times - Agencies