EU countries could be willing to help the US close down Guantánamo Bay by taking in released detainees despite the doubts of some member states, the EU foreign policy chief said today as European foreign ministers struggled to find common ground in Brussels.
“This is an American problem and they have to solve it but we’ll be ready to help if necessary … I think the answer of the EU will be yes,” Javier Solana said before the gathering of European foreign ministers, when asked whether the EU could take some former Guantánamo prisoners.
The issue threatens to split the EU, with some member states keen to do whatever they can to help Barack Obama in closing the much-criticised facility as soon as possible, while others are far more wary. Those harboring doubts – including Germany, Austria and the Netherlands – are concerned about the possibility of accepting former inmates who might still prove a danger, a risk highlighted when it emerged last week that Said Ali al-Shihri, who was released from Guantánamo in 2007, is now al-Qaida’s deputy leader in Yemen.”There is no question that chief responsibility to do with solving the problem of this detention center lies with those who set it up, the Americans themselves,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, said. “But it is also a question of our credibility of whether we support the dismantling of this American camp or not.”
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said Britain had its plate full in dealing with its own nationals in US custody and ruled out taking former inmates from other countries. Britain had already taken nine British nationals and three foreigners who had British residency rights, while the cases of two others still in Guantánamo were being processed, he said.
