BEIJING, November 2, 2009 (AFP) - Beijing expressed anger Monday over the US release of six Chinese Muslim Uighurs to the Pacific island nation of Palau, saying they were terrorist suspects who should be repatriated to China.

"We are strongly dissatisfied and staunchly opposed to the US side handing over these suspected terrorists to a third country against the insistence of the Chinese side," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

"These people should have been handed to China to be dealt with in accordance with the law.... We have raised solemn representations with the US side."

The six Uighurs, who arrived in Palau on Sunday, were released after seven years at Guantanamo Bay in the latest step in US President Barack Obama's struggle to close the controversial prison.

The men had been cleared by the previous George W. Bush administration after it decided to no longer treat them as "enemy combatants," the Justice Department said.

The former prisoners were among 22 Uighurs -- a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority from China's remote Xinjiang region -- living at a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001.

Amid US fears that they could face torture if returned to China, five were released to Albania in 2006, and four were resettled in Bermuda this year. The others have remained in legal limbo.

Palau, one of a handful of countries that recognises Taiwan over Beijing, has agreed to take up to 12 Uighurs. Seven remain at Guantanamo, where 215 "war on terror" suspects are still held.

"China urges the US to implement the UN Security Council's relevant resolutions and its international obligations on counter-terrorism," spokesman Ma said in the statement on his ministry's website.

"China also opposes any third country taking these terrorist suspects."