By Jonathan Kaminsky
Associated Press
KOROR, Palau — A fourth Chinese Muslim detainee held at Guantanamo Bay has agreed to be relocated to the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau, officials said Tuesday.
Relocating the Uighurs would bring the Obama administration a step closer to its goal of finding new homes for terrorism suspects and others captured in Afghanistan who have been cleared of wrongdoing but cannot go home for fear of persecution. China regards the Uighurs as terrorist suspects and wants them returned.
“Four detainees have agreed to come to Palau,” Isaac Soaladaob, Palau President Johnson Toribiong’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press. Lawyers for three detainees told the AP last week they would resettle there.
Mark Bezner, the top U.S. official on Palau, confirmed that four have agreed and said negotiations continue with the nine other Uighur detainees held in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“There could be others to accept” the offer of resettlement on Palau, Bezner said.
A total of 17 Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs), Turkic Muslims from far western China, were held by the United States since their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. The Pentagon determined last year they were not “enemy combatants,” but they have been in legal limbo ever since.
Four Uighurs held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay were resettled in Bermuda in June.
Palau, a developing country of 20,000 that is dependent on U.S. development funds, in June offered to take the Uighurs.
No Uighurs currently live on Palau, which has a Muslim population of about 400, mostly migrant workers from Bangladesh.
The relocation agreements need U.S. Congressional approval, a process that is expected to take about two weeks.