Tirana ready to get more from Guantanamo Bay

TIRANA, Dec 2 – Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Wednesday that his country would be ready to shelter more persons from the Guantanamo Bay if asked by Washington.
He spoke after meeting with US Ambassador Daniel Fried who was visiting Tirana. Berisha also announced Albania was adding 85 more troops to its contingent in Afghanistan.
Berisha repeated that he had told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last January of Albania’s readiness to positively respond to any US request for more ex-prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.
The premier said he had always been in favor of closing Guantanamo Bay “Ƣecause it was made a symbol of what the Untied States were not.”
“Of course I have stated they cannot be Uighurs because, for well-known reasons, ties with China are of special importance for Albania,” he said.
Albania accepted five Uighur detainees in 2006 but has balked at taking others, partly due to concern about diplomatic repercussions from China.
A Swedish immigration court initially granted asylum to one of the men, but the Swedish migration board is now appealing the decision to a higher court. Adil Hakimjan applied for asylum in Sweden because his sister lives there.
Uighurs are from Xinjiang, an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations. They say they have been repressed by the Chinese government. China long has said that insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang.
The Uighur detainees taken to Guantanamo Bay were captured in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001.
The Uighurs remaining at Guantanamo are no longer regarded as enemy combatants by the United States. But U.S. authorities have rejected calls by China to return the detainees, citing fears of persecution.
Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries, has offered some assistance to the Uighurs – jobs, mosques and help learning the local language.
Washington has announced plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center but the fate of the remaining 240 detainees remains uncertain.
Berisha said that when “ơ friendly country and a great friend like the United States has an internal legal problem for keeping them in their territory, of course it is the moral obligation of a friendly country to contribute in its solution. In that context there are a number of countries that are contributing. Albania cannot but contribute too.”