Germany needs more info on U.S. Guantanamo request

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany is not ready to say yes to a new U.S. request that it take in two inmates from the Guantanamo Bay prison because it has not received enough information on them, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

"We're examining two new cases," a ministry spokesman said, declining to give further details on the men. A security source said Washington had asked Berlin to take in two men of Tunisian and Syrian origin.

"The information provided by the United States is not sufficient for now for us to give the green light for taking in the two men," the ministry spokesman said.

Berlin needs to know whether the men still pose any danger, why they could not be taken in by the United States and what ties they had to Germany, he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to close the Guantanamo prison by early next year and is looking for countries to take the remaining detainees.

In Germany, politicians in conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition have been divided over the issue.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Social Democrat candidate to challenge Merkel in September's election, has spoken in favor of accepting inmates, but conservative Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has voiced skepticism.

Merkel told a joint news conference with Obama last week that Germany wanted to help solve the Guantanamo problem, but did not commit Germany to accepting inmates.

German officials have in past weeks debated whether Germany should take in a group of Chinese Muslim Uighur detainees from Guantanamo, who the U.S. government is worried may face persecution if they were returned to China.

The Pacific island nation of Palau said this week it had agreed to accept the Uighurs, but China demanded on Thursday that the men be returned to China.

(Reporting by Hans-Edzard Busemann; writing by Kerstin Gehmlich; editing by Tim Pearce)