The British, French and German envoys to Washington, on Sunday
joined the UN call for closing the unpopular US detention camp at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte told CNN: "Guantanamo is an
embarrassment, and so it has to be solved one way or the
other."
Levitte made the comments during an interview alongside his
British and German counterparts.
German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger said: "The sooner it's
closed, the better it will be for the image of the United States,
not only as a military and political but also as a moral leader in
the world."
The British envoy, Sir David Manning, said: "It's difficult to
find the right line to draw between your duties as a government for
security and safeguarding liberty, but it is clearly an anomaly and
it needs to be dealt with."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday urged the United
States to decide on the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention
center, saying it must be shut down " sooner or later."
"I think sooner or later there will be a need to close
Guantanamo. I think it will be up to the government to decide, and
hopefully to do it as soon as possible," Annan told reporters after
a luncheon with Security Council members.
Annan's comments came after a UN report was released in Geneva
earlier Thursday calling on Washington "to close down the
Guantanamo Bay detention center and to refrain from any practice
amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
Washington has rejected the UN report with US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld dismissing as "flat wrong" the calls for its
closure.
About 500 terror suspects are being jailed at the US naval base
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most of whom were captured during the
US-led war in Afghanistan in 2001, and are being held indefinitely
without a trial.
(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2006)
