Sudan seeks release of nationals held in Guantanamo, Iraq, Israel

KHARTOUM, Jan 28 (AFP) — Khartoum is seeking the release of Sudanese held at the US navy base in Guantanamo and US-occupied Iraq, as well as in Israel, Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail said in remarks published Wednesday.

Ismail told the official Al-Anbaa daily that US authorities had promised to allow their Sudanese counterparts to visit Sudan’s nationals held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Contacts with the US administration are continuing and have reached an advanced stage,” Ismail said, expressing hope they would be freed soon.

He did not give numbers or specify under what circumstances they were taken to Guantanamo, where the US authorities have been holding hundreds of alleged Islamic militants as part of their war on terror.

The foreign minister said his country’s embassy in Baghdad had contacted the US-led coalition authorities about freeing an unspecified number of Sudanese detained in Iraq.

“The coalition authorities promised to set free those detainees, or at least some of them, soon,” Ismail said.

Sudan’s embassy in Beirut, meanwhile, is following the case of three Sudanese detainees in Israeli prisons who are due to be freed under a deal between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, the foreign minister said.

“The embassy will follow the case of the Sudanese detainees in Israel until their release and return home,” Ismail said.