LONDON (Agencies)
Britain asked the United States Tuesday to release five Arab men – all former British residents – from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, in a sign of a tougher stance against Washington by new Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The five -- Saudi Shaker Aamer, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna, Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, Ethiopian Binyam Mohamed and Algerian Abdennour Sameur -- had either been granted refugee status or leave to remain in Britain prior to their detention.
In the past, London has refused to intervene in cases of residents without British nationality.
But new Foreign Secretary David Miliband wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seeking the return of the five.
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Brown, not Blair The move comes six weeks after Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as British prime minister on June 27.
He has since taken a number of steps to distance himself from the controversially close ties between Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush over the Iraq war, which saw Blair dubbed Bush's "poodle" by the British media.
Brown raised eyebrows by appointing former U.N. deputy chief Mark Malloch Brown, in the past a fierce critics of U.S. foreign policy, to his new cabinet, as well as other anti-Iraq figures.
Britain welcomed recent U.S. steps to reduce the number of detainees at the U.S. naval base camp in Cuba and to move towards the closure of the controversial facility, the Foreign Office said in a statement.
In this light, Britain has "decided to request the release and return of the five detainees who have links to the UK as former residents, having been granted refugee status, indefinite leave or exceptional leave to remain prior to their detention," it added.
While Brown insists there is no change in the relationship between Britain and the United States, his first face-to-face talks with Bush late last month were widely seen as establishing a more formal, cooler relationship with him.
As well as Malloch Brown, other members of Brown's cabinet are said to have had reservations about the Iraq war including Miliband, although he too insists that ties have not changed since Blair left office.
The Foreign Office noted that it had secured the release of all British nationals held at Guantanamo by January 2005.
It noted that in the past seeking the release of non British citizens would have been "ineffective," since the United States had made clear that it would not negotiate with third countries regarding non-nationals.
"The situation has now changed and the foreign secretary and home secretary have reviewed the government's approach in light of these circumstances," said the Foreign Office. |
