UN experts cancel Guantanamo visit

"Since the Americans have not accepted the minimum requirements for such a visit, we must cancel," Manfred Nowak, the UN envoy in charge of investigating torture allegations around the world, told AFP in Vienna.

The trip had been planned for December 6.

Earlier in Geneva, the five experts, including Nowak, issued a statement in which they said deeply regretted a US rejection of private interviews with the prisoners during the scheduled visit.

The December 6 date had been set after more than three years of discussions between US authorities and the UN amid claims of human rights breaches at the prison.

"Under the circumstances, we will not be travelling to Guantanamo," their statement said, because "doing so would undermine the principles" of UN human rights fact-finding missions.

"It is particularly disappointing that the United States government, which has consistently declared its commitment to the principles of independence and objectivity of the fact-finding mechanisms, was not in a position to accept these terms."