WELLINGTON, New Zealand: The tropical Pacific island nation of Palau announced yesterday it would accept up to 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay despite a Pentagon determination that they are not "enemy combatants".

China's Foreign Ministry had no immediate reaction to the decision by Palau to grant Washington's request to resettle the detainees from China's Uygur minority who had been incarcerated at the US Navy base in Cuba.

The US would not send the Uygurs back to China. Uygur insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in China's far west and wants those held at Guantanamo to be returned to China.