By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters – An U.N. expert informed the highest rights body in the world that Washington has sent her a preliminary invitation for Guantanamo Bay to Cuba. It could result in the special rapporteurs making their first visit to Guantanamo.

Washington and U.N. Independent Experts have been talking about a visit to the site for over 20 years. However, this offer may represent the best chance of an inspection to determine if there are rights violations.

“I am pleased to report to this council session that the U.S. government has extended a preliminary invitation…to engage in a technical visit to the U.S. naval station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the special rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

She added, “This represents a positive move forward.”

A request for comment was not received by the U.S. State Department immediately. Washington, who was absent under the former president Donald Trump’s rule, returned as a voting participant to this year’s council.

An “invitation to pre-selection” means the parties must still agree on the conditions of the visit. This is the U.N. special reporteur’s way of ensuring that her independent work can continue unabated.

After the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, the U.S. created the prison to house foreign suspects. Critics claim that interrogation methods that resemble torture made the prison a symbol for America’s excesses in the “war on terror”.

Ní Aoláin released a report https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/regular-sessions/session49/list-reports to the council on Tuesday on secret detentions in which she repeated a call to close the site, which she said still has at least 38 male Muslim detainees.