Portugal offers asylum to Gitmo detainees

Portugal has offered to grant asylum to Guantánamo Bay prisoners in a move that could help the incoming US administration accelerate closure of the controversial detention camp in Cuba. The Financial Times reports:

“The time has come for the European Union to step forward,” Mr Amado wrote to EU counterparts in a letter to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “We should send a clear signal of our willingness to help the US government . . . through the resettlement of detainees. As far as the Portuguese government is concerned, we will be available to participate.”

Finding countries to take prisoners who are no longer considered “enemy combatants” is key to closing the camp – which president-elect Barack Obama has pledged to do. President George W. Bush repeatedly said he wanted to shut it, but he ultimately rejected a proposal by Robert Gates, his defence secretary, to bring the detainees to the US.

The Pentagon has approved about 50 detainees for release out of the current population of roughly 250, but Washington has been unable to find countries to take the prisoners.

The US has tried unsuccessfully since 2004 to persuade EU states to take some Muslim Uighurs from China’s Xinjiang region who had been approved for release. Some countries feared that taking them would spark Chinese retaliation.