European Countries May Take Detainees

European officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because their governments have not yet formulated a public stance on the issue, said they expect the Obama administration to take steps to secure European cooperation, some of which appear to be under serious discussion by the transition team.

The Europeans want a clear commitment to close Guantanamo Bay and an acceptance of common legal principles in the fight against terrorism, including those regarding the treatment of suspects, European officials said. A series of meetings between the United States and the European Union on a legal framework for combating terrorism has considerably narrowed differences on the application of human rights law, refugee law and humanitarian law, said Amado and John B. Bellinger III, a legal adviser at the State Department.

The Europeans also want Obama to agree to transfer a small number of detainees to the United States before they attempt to sell a resettlement program to their own citizens.

"I believe that will happen," Amado said.

One group likely to be settled here is 17 Chinese Uighurs who have been held for years at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration has acknowledged that the Uighurs are not enemy combatants, and in October a federal judge ordered them released into the United States.

In interagency discussions, the State Department has argued that the Uighurs be brought to the United States to help persuade Europe to resettle other detainees. But a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the departments of Homeland Security and Justice, as well as White House officials, considered resettlement in the United States a "red-line" issue.

The Justice Department has appealed the judge's order that the Uighurs be released.

"Secretary [Condoleezza] Rice and others at State argued for resettlement in the U.S. as a deal-maker," one U.S. official said. "But it's clear this administration is not going to reconsider the issue of resettlement."

Guantanamo Bay currently has about 250 prisoners, according to the Pentagon. And some European officials said a number of governments are considering the logistics of resettling a majority of the 60 prisoners already cleared for release by U.S. authorities.

The Pentagon has not identified the 60, but a study released by the Brookings Institution last week found that as well as the Chinese Uighurs, the group includes detainees from Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and the Palestinian territories. The Brookings study found that these prisoners "concentrate at the less dangerous end of the spectrum."

The U.S. military no longer holds any European citizens at Guantanamo Bay.

Thomas Steg, a German government spokesman, said yesterday that the United States will not be able to place any conditions on the handling of transferred detainees if they are accepted in Europe.