The United States has again refused to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to foreign suspects held in secret detention centers, the Geneva-based agency said in a statement.

The ICRC statement came after ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger met with top American officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

The main objective of Kellenberger’s visit was to press Washington to allow ICRC access to “all persons held by the U.S. in the context of the fight against terrorism, an issue he first raised with the U.S. government over two years ago," the agency said.

"Mr. Kellenberger deplored the fact that the U.S. authorities had not moved closer to granting the ICRC access to persons held in undisclosed locations," it added.

The United States has been facing mounting international criticism over the number of suspects it holds and the conditions at its prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.

Washington, moreover, came under increasing scrutiny after media reports revealed it was holding an unknown number of suspects in secret locations overseas, refusing either to acknowledge the detentions or to give information on the fate or the whereabouts of those detainees. -------“No right” ------

ICRC says that it was told by U.S. authorities that there were “legitimate grounds” for holding foreign terror suspects who posed a threat to the United States. But Kellenberger said: "No matter how legitimate the grounds for detention, there exists no right to conceal a person's whereabouts or to deny that he or she is being detained."

The former top Swiss diplomat stressed that the ICRC would continue to seek access to these people "as a matter of priority" despite the "the disappointing lack of results and the current U.S. position". Antonella Notari, chief ICRC spokeswoman, said that "it is absolutely vital for such people to be held in a clear legal framework and that they are granted all basic judicial safeguards," "Obviously this includes those people held in secret places of detention."

There was no immediate comment from the United States.

Last December, the state department spokesman Adam Ereli admitted that "there are some" detainees to whom the U.S. refuses to grant access.

The International Committee Red Cross is the only independent organization which can have access to suspects in U.S. jails in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The ICRC should be allowed to visit prisoners of war, but the U.S. classifies its detainees as "enemy combatants", denying them their legal rights under the Geneva Conventions. Source: Aljazeera.com