WASHINGTON, June 9: US President George Bush has left open the possibility of closing the Guantánamo Bay prison after a former US president Jimmy Carter called for it to be shut down.

“We’re exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America,” Mr Bush said when asked in an interview on Fox television if he would close the detention centre.

But he warned that the US would not take any hasty decision.

“What we don’t want to do is let somebody out that comes back and harms us,” he said.

On Tuesday, former US president Jimmy Carter had urged the Bush administration to close down Guantanamo Bay to demonstrate the US commitment to human rights at a time when its reputation has suffered globally because of reported prisoner abuses at Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Carter told a human rights conference in Atlanta that besides closing Guantánamo Bay and two dozen other detention facilities, the US needed to ensure all detainees were told the charges against them.

He also recommended that the United States stop transferring detainees to countries where torture had been reported.

US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, said he did not know of anyone in the administration who was considering closing Guantanamo.

Next week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a private hearing to determine whether the Bush administration has granted the prisoners at Guantanamo enough legal rights.

Guantanamo holds about 540 detainees. Some have been there for more than three years without being charged with any crime.

Most were captured during the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation.

Earlier this month, Amnesty International had compared Guantanamo with the Soviet Gulag, causing an angry reaction in Washington.

In his Wednesday afternoon interview to Fox News, Mr Bush said such comparisons were ‘just absurd’. Mr Bush blames ‘people who hate America’ for the allegations of abuse at the prison.