Brussels, 12/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - In a backdrop to the G8 meeting in New York, European Commissioner for justice and home affairs Antonio Vitorino and the European Anti-Terrorism Coordinator Gijs de Vries met the Secretary for Internal Security Tom Ridge and Justice Minister John Ashcroft. The new emphasis on borders (transmission of air passenger data, biometric passports, visas) etc means that it is extremely important to have close cooperation with the internal security department, declared Commissioner Vitorino at the end of the meeting with Tom Ridge. Both highlighted the crucial importance of Trans-Atlantic cooperation against terrorism. The European Commissioner welcomed the initiative of the US government to postpone the demand for bio-metric passports by two years, a condition for maintaining the exemption of visas for citizens from fourteen of the fifteen former Member States (Greece is not a beneficiary and nor is Slovenia).
Both Ridge and Vitorino were asked in a press conference on the consequences of the torture inflicted on Iraqi prisoners of war by US troops. Tom Ridge denounced the abuse but insisted that the US did not lose sight of its long term objective of fighting international terrorism. Antonio Vitorino also condemned the acts of torture but underlined that Trans-Atlantic cooperation was "not hostage of any kind of foreign policy issue".