Qatar has reportedly withdrawn its support of China for detaining millions of Uighur Muslims, in a fresh split among Islamic states over how to approach the mass persecution by the world’s rising superpower.

The small Gulf state was initially among 37 countries - including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt - which wrote to the UN to defend China’s round up of Muslims as legitimate “counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures”.

Qatar is now changing course and wrote to the United Nations Human Rights Council to ask that its name be withdrawn from the supportive letter, according to Bloomberg.

Ali al-Mansouri, Qatar’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva said: “We wish to maintain a neutral stance and we offer our mediation and facilitation services.”

Muslim states have been deeply divided over how to respond to China’s round up of an estimated 2 million Uighur Muslims. Turkey has condemned China and accused Beijing of “torture and political brainwashing in internment camps”.