After EU foreign ministers endorsed a deal with the US last week on transferring Guantanamo inmates to Europe, while stressing that the decision to accept any inmate was up to individual European governments, Portugal followed Spain and Italy's lead by announcing Saturday that it was ready to take in "two or three" detainees.

"We will accept two or three prisoners. Now, it's up to us, internally, to carry out the necessary procedures to welcome them," Foreign Minister Luis Amado said after a visit to Lisbon by US Special Envoy Daniel Fried, the man charge with finding host countries for more than 200 detainees Washington has chosen not to prosecute.

Amado said that the question of the ex-prisoners' status was currently being studied by the interior ministry.

Seven countries have agreed to take inmates

Italy announced Monday that it would accept three Guantanamo inmates, while Spain agreed in principle to take four, dependent on their cases being reviewed by the foreign ministry.

Last week nine former detainees were transferred to Chad, Iraq and Bermuda, while the Pacific island nation of Palau also agreed to take in a group of 13 Chinese Uighurs.

Portugal was the first country to press publicly for a coordinated European Union resettlement plan for Guantanamo prisoners back in December and is now the seventh country to take them.

The Guantanamo Bay prison camp was opened under former US President George W. Bush to house "enemy combatants" in the government's war on terror after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. "Gitmo", as it became known, attracted widespread international criticism for holding prisoners indefinitely, many without charge.

US President Barack Obama ordered the Guantanamo facility closed by January of next year and the inmates either face trial or release. Washington has since been pushing for other countries to accept inmates who have not been charged and are ready to be released.

nda/AFP/Reuters

Editor: Greg Benzow