US asks Spain to take 4 inmates from 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 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,” Moratinos 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 go to Spain.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley declined to confirm any details but said Fried met Tuesday with Spanish officials to discuss Guantanamo. “These contacts will continue,” Crowley said, adding that the U.S. envoy would be holding similar talks later this week in Hungary.
Fried also plans to visit Portugal, another U.S. State Department official said on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the negotiations.
Fried’s European travels come two days after the European Union agreed to help “turn the page” on Guantanamo by allowing individual nations to take in some of the 229 detainees now 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.
Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay by early next year.
Associated Press reporter Ciaran Giles contributed to this report.
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