MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd May, 2021) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the issue of boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing is not currently on the agenda of the US authorities.
In early April, the US Department of State announced Washington's plans to discuss with allies and partners the possibility of a joint boycott of the Winter Olympic Games in response to China's alleged human rights violations in its Xinjiang region. However, the White House later denied such plans.
"We are not focused on the question of a boycott at this point. It is just not something that we are looking at. It is a year away," Blinken told CBS news on Sunday when asked whether the United States should boycott the Games.
At the same time, the state secretary added that "never say something is impossible."
According to experts at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, up to 1 million ethnic Uyghurs could have been held in Xinjiang internment camps, officially called Xinjiang Vocational education and Training Centers. A number of Western human rights organizations have called on their governments to boycott the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing to protest alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang � something that Beijing denies. The Chinese authorities have long argued that the policies introduced in Xinjiang were necessary to root out terrorism.
