DAN FRIED TO BE APPOINTED SPECIAL ENVOY ON GUANTANAMO

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.03.2009 13:48 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Obama administration will appoint a senior
diplomat as a special envoy on Guantanamo, a move that underscores the
importance the administration places on persuading other countries
to accept detainees as part of the president’s plan to close the
detention camp in a year.

Administration officials said the envoy would be Daniel Fried, who has
been the assistant secretary of state for European affairs. The move
was widely seen as highlighting new efforts by the Obama administration
to enlist European allies in resettling perhaps as many as 60 of the
remaining 241 prisoners at the detention camp at the naval base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It is a sign that the administration is taking this issue very
seriously and that it realizes this is a problem that has to be solved
in an international context," said Geneve Mantri, a counterterrorism
specialist at Amnesty International.

Fried is a career diplomat and former ambassador to Poland who worked
at the National Security Council in the 1990s. His European experience
is likely to be valuable, because the administration is turning to
Europe to try to resettle detainees the U.S. government has concluded
cannot be returned to their home countries, the AP reports.