US asks Spain’s help to close Guantanamo

MADRID — The United States has asked Spain to accept four prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects, the foreign minister said Wednesday.

Miguel Angel Moratinos said Spain will respond when it has studied the legal consequences of taking them in and the circumstances of those four people.

Moratinos has said repeatedly in recent months that Spain is open “in principle” to accepting prisoners held at the prison, which President Barack Obama has promised to shut down.

The minister spoke after Spanish interior, justice and foreign ministry officials met with the American point man in charge of closing the prison, Daniel Fried, who made the formal request that Spain accept four prisoners.

Spain wants to determine “how we can help the U.S. administration continue with its goal of closing Guantanamo,” the Spanish minister said.

Reprieve, a British non-governmental organization that represents many Guantanamo detainees, has said there are about five men from Tunisia and Algeria held at the U.S. facility who wish to be taken in by Spain.

Fried’s European travels come just two days after the European Union agreed to help “turn the page” on Guantanamo by allowing individual nations to take in some of the 240 or so detainees held there. An aide to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday that Italy is open to taking at least three detainees from Guantanamo.

Last week, the Obama administration sent four Chinese Uighurs held at Guantanamo to Bermuda. The Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed to take in 13 other Uighurs still being held. The men, members of a Muslim minority in China, have long since been cleared by U.S. officials, but have not been returned to China for fear of persecution there.

Fried also plans to visit Portugal and Hungary, a U.S. State Department official in Washington said on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the negotiations.

Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay by early next year.

Associated Press reporter Ciaran Giles contributed to this report.