US plans transfer several dozen Afghans from Guantanamo Bay to an Afghanistan prison, but the detention centre will not be closed, a White House spokeswoman announced Friday.

Deputy press secretary Dana Perino told reporters that the US is renovating part of the Pol-e-Charki prison outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, but the new detention center will not become a replacement for Guantanamo Bay.

"We hope to be able to transfer several dozen Afghans from Guantanamo back to Afghanistan in the near future," she said.

US president George Bush said he wants to close Guantanamo, after the detention center has come under heavy criticism by Europe and human rights groups. The US president said that America has no interest in being the world's jailer,", but the administration must be sure that freed inmates will not commit terrorism against the US.

"Everybody is working toward the goal to meet what the president has asked them to do, which is to do it as soon as possible," Deputy press secretary Dana Perino told reporters.

US officials are split on how to handle the remaining 380 terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo. According to media reports, Vice President Dick Cheney as well as the justice and homeland security departments has opposed suggestions to bring detainees to military detention centers in the US. The proposal is backed up Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others.

"No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "The president has long expressed a desire to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to do so in a responsible way."