Palau’s President Johnson Toribiong says he’ll press Australia to take in former Guantanamo detainees from the Chinese Muslim Uighur minority, who want to be resettled permanently.

President Toribiong says he’ll raise the issue of the Uighurs’ resettlement during talks with Australian officials, on the sidelines of next month’s Pacific Islands Forum in Vanuatu.

The six men from China’s remote northwestern region of Xinjiang were detained at Guantanamo Bay in late 2001.

Although cleared of any wrongdoing four years later, they remained in detention until last year when the former US-administered Pacific territory of Palau agreed to provide a temporary home.

The US refused to send them back to China for fear they would be persecuted after Beijing described them as terrorist suspects who should be repatriated.

http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/201007/2968264.htm?desktop