BEIJING, May 31. (RIA Novosti) - China may "seriously consider" sending its troops to Kyrgyzstan, the Huaxia Shibao newspaper on Tuesday reported Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao as saying. According to some mass media, on May 25, Kyrgyz acting president Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced that he would agree to deploy in the country troops of the Collective Security Treaty Organization led by Russia, as well as of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, including Chinese troops. The announcement came following mass riots in Uzbek regions bordering on Kyrgyzstan. The Uzbek authorities blamed the upheavals on Islamic extremists. Liu Jianchao underlined that so far China had never deployed its forces in other countries, the newspaper reported.
"Deployment of armed forces in the southern districts of Kyrgyzstan could prove useful for fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism," it quoted him as saying. However, China does not have this experience, he added.
So far the Chinese Foreign Ministry has not commented on the statement.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was set up in June 2001 and comprises Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The Collective Security Treaty was signed between Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia in 1992.
The main goal of both organizations is to ensure security of Central Asia.
