Plans by the United States to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba remain unchanged despite the passing of a self-imposed January 22 deadline, dpa quoted US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as saying today. Guantanamo would be closed, even if it took "more time," Napolitano said in Toledo, Spain, where she had attended a European Union interior ministers' meeting on Thursday. Napolitano attributed the closure delay partly to difficulties in obtaining sufficient information on the facility's inmates so they could be moved elsewhere. She thanked European countries for their willingness to receive detainees, but stressed the need to proceed correctly, and said the operation was moving "in a good direction." Spain has promised to take two inmates from Guantanamo. Their nationalities have not been given, but Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Friday that one of them was a Palestinian. The man was a Gaza resident who had gone to work in Saudi Arabia and was detained in Pakistan, al-Malki said during a visit to Madrid. Spain and the Palestinian authorities would discuss repatriating the prisoner to Palestinian territories, the minister said, explaining the man had not fought in Afghanistan and had no links with the Taliban or with al-Qaeda.
