OREANDA-NEWS. July 8, 2009. We are closely following reports from Urumqi, the administrative center of the PRC’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, where tragic events occurred the other day with a large number of people killed and wounded. According to available information, riot initiators, using separatist slogans and provoking inter-ethnic intolerance, attacked and beat civilians, overturned and set fire to cars, ransacked shops and public buildings.

We express our sincere sympathy to the kith and kin of those innocently killed or injured in the violence caused by the instigators of the clashes.

We would like to reaffirm that the Russian side regards Xinjiang as an integral part of China, and what is happening there as an exclusively internal matter of the PRC. We hope that the actions being undertaken within the law by the Chinese authorities to maintain public order in Xinjiang will help normalize the situation in that area soon.