Their release comes as the administration scrambles to meet President Obama's pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by early next year.
Bermuda Premier Ewart Brown said the men will be allowed to live in Bermuda, a British territory in the Atlantic, initially as refugees but they would be permitted to pursue citizenship and would have the right to work, travel, and "potentially settle elsewhere."
Brown said negotiations with Washington over settling the Uighurs began last month and he had no security concerns because the men had been cleared by US courts. But Britain, which handles Bermuda's defense, security, and foreign affairs expressed displeasure at the move.
In his comments, Brown said he had met with the British governor general of the island who he said was "seeking to further assess the ramifications of this move before allowing the government of Bermuda to fully implement this action."
In London, a Foreign Office spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy, said Bermuda considered the resettlement an internal immigration matter, but added that Britain should have been consulted.
"We've underlined to the Bermuda government that it should have consulted [Britain] on whether this falls within their competence or is a security issue for which the Bermuda government do not have delegated responsibility," she said.
At the State Department, spokesman Ian Kelly said the transfer had been arranged in talks between US and Bermudan officials. He said Britain was consulted at some point but would not say when. But he added that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had discussed the matter yesterday with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
"We dealt directly with the government of Bermuda to make this happen," he told reporters. Kelly added that US officials were "confident that we can work these things through with the government of [Britain]."
