TORONTO -- Canada's three opposition parties have written Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barak Obama urging the return of a young Canadian Guantánamo Bay detainee.

Obama will visit Ottawa on Feb. 19 -- his first foreign trip as president.

Omar Khadr, a Toronto native, was 15 when he was accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a 2002 battle in Afghanistan. He is one of the youngest people ever charged with war crimes.

Harper's Conservative government has steadfastly refused to intervene with Washington. Harper said recently he did not believe Khadr was a child soldier.

But his government has come under increasing pressure to bring him home.

Kory Teneycke, a spokesman for Harper, said he doesn't expect either leader to raise the issue in next week's meeting. He said it would be inappropriate for Harper to address it while the new U.S. administration decides what to do about the Guantánamo cases.

''We will react to changes in the U.S. position if and when that happens,'' Teneycke said.

Khadr's case came to an abrupt end last month -- just days after it started -- when a series of military judges granted Obama's request to suspend the trials at Guantánamo for 120 days.

In his first week in office, Obama ordered the prison in Cuba to be closed within a year. The Obama administration is reviewing the Guantánamo cases to determine whether the 245 suspects remaining there should be tried in U.S. courts or released to other countries.

Khadr is now 22, and his lawyer said he would be willing to face prosecution in Canada.

''If he is to face charges, those charges should be considered in Canada under Canadian law,'' opposition Liberal lawmaker Bob Rae said during a rare news conference Wednesday by the opposition Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and New Democrats -- who hold the majority of seats in Parliament.

Obama also is expected to meet with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who will likely ask him about Khadr.

In a letter to Obama and Harper, the opposition parties asked Obama to acknowledge Khadr's status as a child soldier and asked that the U.S. transfer the available evidence against him to the Canadian government for evaluation.

Khadr has received some sympathy in recent years, but his relatives has received little in Canada because they are seen as the ``first family of terrorism.''

His father was an alleged al Qaeda militant and financier who was slain by Pakistani forces in 2003, and a brother, Abdullah Khadr, is being held in Canada on a U.S. extradition warrant, accused of supplying weapons to al Qaeda. Another brother has acknowledged that their Egyptian-born father and some of his brothers fought for al Qaeda and that his family had stayed with Osama bin Laden.

To allay fears that Khadr is a potentially dangerous terrorist, his lawyers propose having him live with a family other than his own upon his return to Canada.

Wesley Wark, a University of Toronto professor and national-security expert, said because there is no groundswell of sympathy in Canada for Khadr or his family, the government can wait for the U.S. to decide what to do.

''When the Americans decide, they can say 'We'll, we had a policy but the United States has changed its mind about what it's doing, now we have to rethink things,'' Wark said.

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