EU foreign ministers fail to reach common position on Guantanamo

BRUSSELS. January, 27. KAZINFORM - The European Union (EU) on Monday welcomed the U.S. decision to close the Guantanamo detention camp within one year, but failed to reach a common position on how to assist the U.S. administration on the issue.

"The primary responsibility for closing Guantanamo rests with the United States ... but due to the legal situation, you can't give a quick answer. By the way, there was no official request to the European Union (from the United States)," Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU presidency, told a press conference after the first-day talks of the EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels. Schwarzenberg said the ministers discussed the ways in which EU member states can assist Washington in closing the Guantanamo detention center, but admitted that "there was nobody hot about this, that's perfectly true." Stressing "it is not a question which could be resolved in weeks or months," he said it is up to each nation to decide what they should do, including whether to accept the detainees now imprisoned in Guantanamo. "We have to clear up a lot of things with the other side. There are a number of political, legal and security issues which need further study," said Schwarzenberg, adding that the home and justice ministers will have to get involved in the issue. Also speaking at the press conference, European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that Guantanamois an issue for individual EU member state, but "at the same time, we would like to see some EU platform for a common response." Describing the issue as "very delicate and sensitive," Waldner said that the ministers would have to discuss during their next meeting on the next moves. On Jan. 22, U.S. President Barack Obama signed three executive orders and a presidential directive, asking for the closure of the controversial Guantanamo detention camp within one year, a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and all individual cases, and a ban on harsh interrogation methods. The detention center was set up at a U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the Bush administration's launch of the "war on terror;" Kazinform has learned from Xinhuanet.