Dan Fried to be appointed special envoy on Guantanamo
The Obama administration will appoint a senior diplomat as a special envoy on Guantanamo, a move that underscores the importance the administration places on persuading other countries to accept detainees as part of the president's plan to close the detention camp in a year.
Administration officials said the envoy would be Daniel Fried, who has been the assistant secretary of state for European affairs. The move was widely seen as highlighting new efforts by the Obama administration to enlist European allies in resettling perhaps as many as 60 of the remaining 241 prisoners at the detention camp at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"It is a sign that the administration is taking this issue very seriously and that it realizes this is a problem that has to be solved in an international context," said Geneve Mantri, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International.
Fried is a career diplomat and former ambassador to Poland who worked at the National Security Council in the 1990s. His European experience is likely to be valuable, because the administration is turning to Europe to try to resettle detainees the U.S. government has concluded cannot be returned to their home countries, the AP reports.
Administration officials said the envoy would be Daniel Fried, who has been the assistant secretary of state for European affairs. The move was widely seen as highlighting new efforts by the Obama administration to enlist European allies in resettling perhaps as many as 60 of the remaining 241 prisoners at the detention camp at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"It is a sign that the administration is taking this issue very seriously and that it realizes this is a problem that has to be solved in an international context," said Geneve Mantri, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International.
Fried is a career diplomat and former ambassador to Poland who worked at the National Security Council in the 1990s. His European experience is likely to be valuable, because the administration is turning to Europe to try to resettle detainees the U.S. government has concluded cannot be returned to their home countries, the AP reports.
