China Says Eastern Turkistan Behind Airline Incident in Xinjiang

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

["China Says Eastern Turkistan Behind Airline Incident in Xinjiang" - Xinhua headline]

BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) – The passenger flight incident earlier this month was planned by Eastern Turkistan separatist forces, a Chinese official said on Thursday.

“An investigation found that the attempt to cause an air disaster on the Southern Airlines flight on March 7 was a grave act of sabotage instigated and conducted by Eastern Turkistan separatists from abroad,” Wang Lequan, Party chief of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in the remote northwestern part of the country, told Xinhua.

Originally published by Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 1044 20 Mar 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Newsfile. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.