4,500 ethnic Kazakhs refuse from Chinese citizenship – MFA

AKIPRESS.COM - 4,500 ethnic Kazakhs from China registered an exit from the citizenship of China from January-September 2019, the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan told Azattyk. According to the Ministry, the Embassy of Kazakhstan in China this year has issued exit visas to 35,000 Kazakhs.
"9,400 Kazakhs [from China] received documents that allowed them to meet with relatives living in Kazakhstan," the statement says.
The MFA of Kazakhstan reported that 10,790 ethnic Kazakhs from abroad received the citizenship of Kazakhstan in January-August 2019. The MFA last year granted citizenship to 18,000 repatriates.
In September, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Kazakhstan said that almost half of the ethnic Kazakhs receiving citizenship of Kazakhstan came moved from Uzbekistan, 36% - from China, 6.2% - from Mongolia, 5.4% - from Turkmenistan.
Upon arrival, the ethnic Kazakhs are granted the status of repatriate, which is valid within ona year. Azattyk earlier told that all repatriates manage to register documents for receiving citizenship during this period. Vice Minister of Labor Akhmadi Sarbasov in September said that the authorities of Kazakhstan decided to give them an opportunity to prolong the status of repatriate to get the citizenship in a simplified procedure until December 31, 2019.
Most of repatriates facing problems with citizenship of Kazakhstan are from China. They could not provide documents that are requested by the Kazakh side due to the fear to go to Xinjiang, where the ethnic minorities are allegedly prosecuted and placed in the special camps.