The White House is still committed to emptying the prison camps at Guantánamo of war-on-terror detainees within President Barack Obama's first year in office.

''Absolutely,'' spokesman Robert Gibbs replied Monday to a reporter's question of whether a Jan. 20 detention center closure date ``is within reach.''

The Pentagon today houses some 229 detainees from about 20 nations, about a dozen of whom face military trial. More than 50 others have been cleared for release but cannot return to their nations of birth because they might be tortured there as devout Muslims or for the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo.

''We're making progress on what I think everybody understood and believes is a very complicated issue,'' Gibbs said at the White House press briefing, noting that European nations have been stepping forward and agreeing to resettle some Guantánamo captives.

Moreover, he noted Bermuda recently agreed to take four Muslims from China belonging to the Uighur ethnic group, breaking a deadlock there, and reports have indicated another 13 Uighurs might be sent to Palau.

Still unclear is whether a State Department envoy assigned to negotiate transfers has made any progress on a search for a safe, reliable detention site for up to 100 Yemeni detainees among the 229 men at the prison camps in remote southeast Cuba.

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