Ireland to Take 2 Guantanamo Inmates

Ireland became the latest European country to come to the aid of President Obama, who is attempting to honor his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay by January 2010, when its Justice Minister confirmed that his country would resettle two detainees.

Shortly after taking office in January one of the first policies announced by the new U.S. President was the intended closure of the detention facility, first opened in 2002 by his predecessor George W. Bush, which is housed within the naval base the United States still maintains on the Southeastern tip of Cuba. One of the major stumbling blocks to the success of that policy has been the question of where the facility's current inmates should be housed. In May the President's plans suffered a considerable setback when Senate Democrats joined with their Republican counterparts to deny the President the funds he would need to start closing Guantanamo down, the Senate members fearing that some of the terrorist suspects being held there would be transferred to prisons within the U.S. itself if other countries refused to take them in. As Al Jazeera reports, on June 15 President Obama did receive some good news when a deal was struck with European Union Foreign Ministers for the transfer of some of the Guantanamo inmates, although the final decision on receiving any inmates would still rest with the individual governments of the European countries that were party to the agreement. France had already agreed to accept one inmate in April and following June's agreement Italy indicated its willingness to accept three inmates, Portugal committed to accepting two or three and Hungary agreed to resettle one or two. There was also less firm commitments from Britain, Spain and Belgium to resettling "some" detainees. In early June it emerged that Bermuda, an overseas territory of Britain, had accepted four Uighur detainees. Reportedly the British government was not aware that the men had been resettled on the island, which lies in the Atlantic Ocean 1100 miles Northeast of Miami. Now Ireland has joined its European partners in assisting a U.S. administration which has to find alternative homes for some 240 inmates before it can close a facility that has often attracted strong criticism from the international community for the allegedly harsh manner in which the detainees are treated. The identities of the two men who will be traveling to Ireland has not been confirmed but there is strong speculation that they are Uzbek citizens. Announcing the decision of his government to accept the men, the New York Times allows you to access his statement in full, Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern had this to say on some of the circumstances surrounding it and the arrangements that are being made in respect of the two men:

In making this decision I am conscious of the intention of the United States to close the centre at Guantanamo Bay, in part by transferring detainees no longer regarded as posing a threat to security but who cannot return to their own countries, or to other countries willing to accept them. A definite timetable has yet to be established, [but] the transfer of the two detainees is expected within the next couple of months

Mr Ahern emphasized too the fact that the Irish government had always been strong advocates for the closure of Guantanamo, which his officials had inspected before the decision to accept the detainees was ratified. Dan Rooney, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, was notified by Mr Ahern of the Irish government's commitment to resettling the inmates at a meeting held on Wednesday in the Irish town of Dundalk.