BLACKBURN, April 1: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, stressing the United States does not intend to be the ‘world’s jailer’, said on Saturday Washington was ready to close its Guantanamo facility for terror suspects the day it was no longer needed. On the second day of a visit to this north-western England town, Ms Rice reacted to comments by her host, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, that the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was ‘an anomaly’ that should be shut down.

“The United States does not desire to keep Guantanamo in being any longer than it is needed,” she told a joint news conference.

“We don’t want to be the world’s jailer,” she said. “That’s not the United States, (or) the purpose of US policy.”

Ms Rice defended Guantanamo, saying it was created as an outgrowth of the ‘war on terror’.

“It’s there because we capture people on battlefields, particularly in Afghanistan, but sometimes frankly on the battlefields of our democratic societies who are either plotting or planning or actively engaged in terrorist activities,” Rice said.

The US government has already released hundreds of people from Guantanamo but is still holding some 490 detainees.

“That’s not to say that we would not be very glad of the day that conditions permit the closure of Guantanamo and the trying of its inhabitants for their future release,” Rice added. —AFP