China on Tuesday demanded the return of five Chinese terror suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center, denouncing a U.S. decision to allow them to seek asylum in Albania.

Picture taken in January 2006 shows a watchtower at Camp X-ray on the US Naval Base of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. [AFP]

"These suspects should be sent to China as soon as possible," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

"The act by the United States and Albania strongly violates international law," Liu said at a news briefing.

Liu claimed that the five Chinese, members of the country's Uighur minority, are suspected of being members of a group accused of waging a violent separatist campaign in the country's northwest.

The five were among a number of Chinese detainees who had languished at the prison in Cuba for several years after being picked up during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"They fought on the side of Taliban during the Afghan war, and this single fact can prove that they are nothing else but terror suspects," Chinese Ambassador to Albania Tian Changchun said.

"East Turkistan," upon which the UN Security Council had imposed sanctions, was part of the international terrorist network and had close relations with terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, the ambassador said.

He said according to international laws, the five terror suspects should be repatriated to China, and China hoped that Albania would give them up as quickly as possible.

The five Chinese were dumped into Albania for settlement by the United States last Friday.

The United States had asked about 20 countries to offer settlements to the detainees. But countries such as Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Turkey had turned town the request.