European Countries May Take Detainees

"One thing is clear: The Americans cannot ask for any special terms -- no other agreements, swaps or other strings attached," he told reporters in Berlin.

He also said all 27 members of the European Union will have to discuss the matter. Countries such as Denmark have already signaled that they will not accept any detainees, arguing that they are the sole responsibility of the United States.

"Why should they be taken into the much smaller Danish society?" Per Stig Moller, the country's foreign minister, said last month. "None of these prisoners has anything whatsoever to do with Denmark."

Some general agreement among E.U. members is required because of the freedom of travel within the union, but that prerequisite is not expected to block a resettlement deal because of the general desire in Europe "to please Obama," as one German official put it in an interview.

The Bush administration shopped lists of detainees to a number of European countries, including late last year when European officials were asked to take 16 of the 17 Uighurs, four Uzbeks, an Egyptian, a Palestinian and a Somali, according to U.S. diplomats and human rights groups.

"There was a big push last year," said Bellinger, the State Department legal adviser, who said that the administration has cabled approximately 100 countries seeking help with clearing out Guantanamo Bay. "Some countries were willing to consider it, but as part of a group. But no lead country emerged."

A number of civil liberties and human rights groups have also been holding talks with European governments with the quiet approval of the State Department, U.S. officials said.

"We have been saying to them that if you want Guantanamo to close, the [Obama] administration cannot do it without European assistance," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism program director at Human Rights Watch, who has talked with government officials in European capitals.

Mariner declined to identify the governments she spoke with, but she said there has been "a clear change in attitude" since Obama was elected.

"Before, they said, 'Why should we clean up Bush's mess?' But now they are asking deeper questions about the detainees and how they might integrate them," she said.