EU in 'fact-finding' mission on Guantanamo inmates

Two top EU officials held talks in Washington on Monday on whether to take in scores of inmates from the Guantanamo Bay military jail which the US administration aims to close in the coming months.

However, after meeting with top US officials including Attorney General Eric Holder, the Europeans stressed they were there to listen but not take any decisions about whether or not to take in any detainees from the controversial "war on terror" prison.

Dr Holder heads a task force charged by President Barack Obama with closing the remote jail in southern Cuba which still holds some 245 prisoners rounded up in the detention camp launched by the previous administration.

EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot and Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said they brought a list of detailed questions to their talks.

"We had a mandate not to negotiate but to receive, to get information," Mr Langer told reporters after the talks, adding that "this is an American problem" and "the speed of the process is in the Americans' hands".

Mr Barrot said European countries would await answers from Washington on how it intends to avoid a repeat of the Guantanamo situation, with inmates languishing for years without charge amid accusation of harsh treatment and interrogation methods.

Any such accord would have to lay out "the principles that drive the anti-terror policy and explain the change of disposition" in terms of US plans regarding detention and interrogation, said Mr Barrot.

"It is for each European country to decide whether or not to allow Guantanamo detainees," Mr Barrot told reporters, adding that the hundreds of prisoners held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan was also raised.

Some 60 prisoners have already been cleared for release, and the talks here were set to focus on how the 27-nation EU bloc could welcome some of them.

A minority of EU countries - France, Italy, Portugal and Spain - have said they might be ready to host Guantanamo prisoners under strict conditions.

Few if any of the detainees cleared for release are EU citizens, and Brussels wants to know exactly why they cannot be hosted by the US.

"There is a very deep wariness on the part of EU interior ministers, who are concerned about the difficulties of hosting one or another inmate. To do that, we need to know a lot about the candidates," Mr Barrot told AFP last week.

The case of 17 Chinese Uighurs has become emblematic of the problem of re-housing the prisoners, many of whom cannot be returned to their home countries as they face repression there.

The Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority who were arrested in Afghanistan in October 2001, have been held at Guantanamo for six years, even though they were cleared in 2003 of any charges.

Washington is refusing to return them to China fearing they would be persecuted by the Chinese authorities, but no other country wants to take them in for fear of angering Beijing.

The Justice Department did not want to comment ahead of the discussions early on Monday.

The two EU officials also met with Senator Joe Lieberman, the independent who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

EU nations regularly called for the closure of the notorious jail, where "war on terror" prisoners have been held often without charge or trial, and have welcomed President Obama's decision to finally shut it down.

But national laws differ widely among the EU countries and they are struggling to define a common position on how best to help. In the past, US authorities have routinely proved reluctant to hand over intelligence data.

Mr Barrot and Mr Langer also raised the issue of visa policy, as citizens from five European countries - Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Cyprus - are still required to obtain a visa before travelling to the US.

Also at issue was a potential agreement with Washington on protecting personal data, which Mr Barrot considered a "condition to any cooperation in the fight against terror and organised crime."