The US has not issued the forceful call that exiled Uighur activists are demanding and which Beijing would label as interference in its domestic business.

Few issues have more starkly highlighted the rest of the world's ambivalence towards the Uighurs cause than the US's long effort to resettle Guantánamo Bay's Uighur detainees.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, described the Uighur Guantánamo detainees as "trained mass killers instructed by the same terrorists responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001".
Despite a flurry of denials and refutations, (they were briefly declared "enemy combatants" before the administration of former President George Bush withdrew its claims) the Obama administration gave up on on the idea of resettling them in the US.

Both the Obama administration and that of George W. Bush spent long months trying to find homes for the Uighurs.
They had some success with Albania, Bermuda and, provisionally, Palau, but many more obvious choices, such as Germany (which has the highest Uighur commiunity in Europe and where Uighur activists recently fire bombed the Chinese consulate) and within the US itself, have fallen through.

As Obama joked? at the recent Radio TV Correspondents' Dinner -

"As I travel to all these countries, I saw firsthand how much people truly have in common with one another. Because no matter where I went, there is one thing I heard over and over again from every world leader—no, thanks, but have you considered Palau?"


In early June the small Pacific island of Palau agreed to accept the Uighers on a temporary basis but its government made it clear that it would not grant them permanent asylum.
Palau has retained close ties with Washington since independence in 1994 when it signed a Compact of Free Association with the US.
It relies heavily on the US for aid and defence.

The Pacific island is asking longtime benefactor the United States for a 35-year extension on direct aid funding — and hinting Washington should say yes because of its offer to take in 13 Guantanamo Bay detainees.

U.S. government aid to Palau over the past 15 years has totaled more than $852 million, according to a congressional estimate.
A recent Palauan request for $18 million in aid for next year is awaiting authorization in Congress.