Sydney  - Six Chinese Muslims detained at Guantanamo Bay since their capture by United States forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 arrived Sunday in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau for resettlement, according to news reports.

Australia was among a number of nations that turned down a request from Washington to take the Uighurs. The request was part of an effort to close down the US military prison on Cuba's east coast.

Australian officials in Canberra were unavailable for comment on reports that the six men had arrived in Koror, the capital of the island nation of around 20,000 people.

Last year the US administration declared that the Uighurs were not "enemy combatants" and had sought to place them abroad to skirt domestic objections to their resettlement in the US.

Palau has agreed to take up to six more Uighurs, who are from the province of Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.

China declared them Islamic insurgents and wanted them returned.

Bermuda, in the Caribbean, has taken four Uighurs. (dpa)