Albania Agrees to Accept More Ex-Guantanamo Detainees

Published January 14, 2015

Albania says it has agreed to accept more former Guantanamo detainees, but not members of China's ethnic Uighur Muslim minority.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha announced the decision following talks in Tirana on Wednesday with U.S. special envoy for Guantanamo Daniel Fried.

But Berisha said his small Balkan country could take no more Uighurs from Guantanamo for fear of prejudicing Albania's relations with China. Five Uighurs were among the eight former detainees from the U.S. prison in Cuba that Albania took in 2006.

The Uighurs are from Xinjiang, an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations. They say they have been repressed by the Chinese government, but it claims they are leading an Islamic separatist movement.

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