The Russian Foreign Ministry said yesterday that handling the violence in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is China's internal affair and Moscow hopes the Chinese government's efforts will normalize the situation.

"We would like to emphasize that Russia considers Xinjiang an inseparable part of China and believes that what is going on there is exclusively an internal affair for China," the ministry said in a statement released in Moscow.

"We hope that the steps the Chinese authorities are taking to maintain public order in Xinjiang will soon help normalize the situation in that region," the statement said.