Philippines - President Barack Obama vowed Thursday to work “meticulously” with Congress to try to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and said he saw no reason for the Paris attacks to derail his long-planned push to make good on an unfulfilled campaign promise.

Speaking to reporters at an economic summit, Obama suggested he still intended to submit a plan to Congress outlining a strategy to close Guantanamo, although he did not offer a time frame. The White House had hoped to send the plan to Congress this week, but the process is stalled over concern about cost estimates, officials said.

“We are going to go through meticulously with Congress what our options are,” Obama after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The comments were aimed at critics who’ve held up the attacks in Paris that killed 129 as fresh evidence that the U.S. cannot risk transferring the detainees either to other countries or a U.S. facility. The detention center currently holds 107 people, a number that has been inching downward as part of the administration’s plan to shrink the population as much as possible before transferring a cohort to a facility in the U.S.... Read More: VIN