Five detainees have been transferred out of Guantanamo Bay to Kazakhstan, the Defense Department announced late Tuesday.
The Pentagon said the transfers were unanimously approved by the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force.
The move comes as President Obama continues efforts to shutter the controversial detention center, which has remained open throughout his tenure despite an early promise to close it.
{mosads}Two other prisoner transfers have already taken place this month. Six detainees were moved to Uruguay and four to Afghanistan. There are now 127 detainees remaining.
“I’m going to be doing everything I can to close it,” Obama told CNN’s “State of the Union” earlier this month, referring to the Guantanamo facility. “It is something that continues to inspire jihadists and extremists around the world, the fact that these folks are being held. It is contrary to our values and it is wildly expensive.”
The Obama administration has faced a range of obstacles in closing the prison, though. Last week, Cliff Sloan, the State Department’s envoy responsible for negotiating Guantanamo prisoner transfers, resigned.
The resignation came amid reports of frustration with the Pentagon for not moving faster on transfers, but Sloan told The New York Times that he had always planned to leave after 18 months.
Congress has also passed measures preventing the transfer of prisoners to U.S. soil. When Obama signed the Defense authorization bill this month, which included such language, he wrote a signing statement that “under certain circumstances” the restrictions would “violate constitutional separation of powers principles.”
The Pentagon identified the latest transfers as Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna, Sabri Muhammad Ibrahim Al Qurashi, Adel Al-Hakeemy and Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Lufti.