mr president the main responsibility for closure of guantánamo bay and the resettlement of detainees undoubtedly lies with the us government
however europe needs to recognise the political reality that the us cannot manage this alone
we have expressed a lot of goodwill towards president obama and commitment to transatlantic relations
that must imply an offer of practical assistance
there are also other reasons for eu member states to cooperate in closing the prison
first of all the humanitarian argument which i hardly need to labour to rescue these men from the hellhole in which some of them have suffered for seven years
secondly europe's credibility we have called on the us to close guantánamo now we have to help to make that true
thirdly our own self-interest in ending a potent symbol that acts as a pretext for terrorist recruitment and radicalisation and lastly the moral responsibility that claudio fava was talking about
however i think we will deal with rendition and the collusion by european governments in a second motion for a resolution in two weeks time
so i strongly welcome the joint resolution that we have agreed between the groups and across the political spectrum and i really hope we will have a strong vote tomorrow
assuming the alde group accepts my advice we will neither table nor support any amendments to this resolution
i just want to deal with a couple of things
firstly the allegations about sixty-one released detainees having become involved in terrorism we have heard from lawyers who know about these things that this is largely baseless
we know of two who have become involved in terrorism
others include those like the eight people in albania who gave interviews to the media the so-called tipton three british citizens who made a film criticising guantánamo
that is not returning to terrorism
lastly concerning the security issues we need to discuss those but credible solutions are being put forward and we can involve the lawyers in that
