President Barack Obama has said Italy has agreed to accept three prisoners held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Mr Obama made the announcement after talks with Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as he pressed efforts to move inmates from Guantanamo, which houses foreign terrorism detainees and has drawn international criticism, to other countries as part of his plan to close the prison by January.
"I ... thanked the prime minister for his support of our policy of closing Guantanamo," Mr Obama said after White House talks with Mr Berlusconi. "This is not just talk. Italy has agreed to accept three specific detainees."
The European Union said earlier yesterday that it was ready to help resettle detainees freed from the detention centre.
Three Guantanamo detainees were transferred to Saudi Arabia "under appropriate security measures" last week, the US Justice Department said. The Saudi transfers followed the transfer of six other detainees last week - four Chinese members of the Uighur ethnic group were released in Bermuda, and one detainee from Iraq and another from Chad were sent to their home countries.
Within days of taking office in January, Mr Obama set a one-year deadline for closing the prison, which now holds more than 220 detainees, as part of his effort to repair the United States' tarnished image abroad.
Mr Obama is seeking help from US allies in resettling Guantanamo inmates as he faces strong opposition in Congress to sending them to prisons in the United States. He has insisted, however, that some prisoners will be jailed on US soil.