China highly appreciates Army Chief General Raheel Sharif's strong resolve and commitment towards counter-terrorism, ensuring peace and development in the region, official sources said here on Saturday. Referring to formation of four-country' group on counter-terrorism during General Raheel's recent visit to Urumqi in Xinjiang region and his meeting with General Fang Fenghui, the sources said this is a big development towards peace.
Pakistan and three other countries of the region have formally announced a four-nation alliance to fight terrorism. Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan have formally agreed on a counter-terrorism mechanism. The Quadrilateral Co-operation and Co-ordination Mechanism (QCCM) in counter-terrorism, came as top military generals from the member nations met in the Chinese city of Urumqi early this week.
Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, Chief of General Staff of Afghan National Army Qadam Shah Shahim, Chief of Joint Staff Department of Central Military Commission (CMC) of China General Fang Fenghui, and First Deputy Defence Minister of Tajikistan Major General E. A. Cobidrzoda attended the meeting.
The regional counterterrorism forum said to be a Chinese initiative, but Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif actively contributed to its establishment. He visited Tajikistan and Afghanistan in March for this purpose. His visit to Kabul on that occasion coincided with that of China's General Fang, who was also there for talks on the alliance."The participants unanimously agreed that terrorism and extremism are serious threat to regional stability and ... reiterated to cooperate for tackling these forces for peace and stability of all member countries," a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting said.
Meanwhile Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region adopted a new anti-terrorism regulation based on China's Anti-Terrorism Law, giving detailed instructions on how to deal with terror activities, including keeping hard-line radicals away from other prisoners and re-assessing convicts' risk level before they can be released from prison.
The regulation, a legal interpretation of the Anti-Terrorism Law that was designed to better suit the situation in Xinjiang, was approved by the autonomous region's legislative body on Sunday and went into effect this week.
Xinjiang is the first provincial-level region in China to have released a regional interpretation of the Anti-Terrorism Law since it was implemented on January 1 this year. The region has been haunted by terror attacks in the past few years that took hundreds of lives.