By Bruno Waterfield - 6th February 2006
US officials will not discuss specific cases with MEPs investigating CIA flights or illegal detention of terror suspects, a senior Washington official said on Monday.
A European parliament committee probing claims of illegal CIA abductions and detention has written to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice asking for cooperation.
But Kurt Volker, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, insisted that US security officials would not discuss individual cases.
“We are not going to comment on specifics. That is a matter for governments,” he told journalists.
MEPs have declared their intention to quiz US officials and intelligence agencies over claims that the CIA has run secret detention camps or “torture” flights.
The parliament is certain to raise prominent cases involving a German citizen abducted to Afghanistan and a Muslim cleric allegedly “kidnapped” on Italian soil.
But Volker insists Washington will only discuss broad issues and will not be drawn on individual cases or claims of CIA actions involving European citizens.
“This is a very complex challenge… we are in a war on terror that is different form a conventional war and we have to look at that.”
“The US has chosen to look at it in one way, Europe has chosen another… but we do need to have a dialogue about how we deal with these things,” he said.
“The issue is not ‘did this flight go here’ but how do we deal with this challenge.”
Volker is hoping debate over CIA operations on European soil has moved on from “not well thought out commentary”.
“We want to work together with Europe as a whole,” he stresses.
“It is not a question of not cooperating, or cooperating, with the European parliament, it is a question of saying we want to work together.”
But UK Socialist MEP Claude Moraes insists the parliament’s investigaton will extend to individual or specific cases.
“There is nothing in our mandate to stop us looking at individual cases. We already have individuals whose cases we are looking at,” he told EUpolitix.
Moraes believes the US is being too quick to rule out cooperation and warns Washington that public opinion can be a powerful political force.
“He is right to raise the difficulty of cooperating with government witnesses, we are more optimistic. We will get specifics, Volker should not be so negative,” he said.
“We do lack legal powers but we will look at the device of naming and shaming. We do not want to do that but we will use the power of public and media opinion if we have to do so.”
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