Georgia is in negotiations with the United States about accepting a number of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze discussed the issue with U.S. diplomat Daniel Fried during talks late Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Interfax reported.
Fried, who is the State Department's special envoy on closing Guantanamo, told reporters after the meeting that if Tbilisi agrees, a small number of detainees might be sent there. But he stressed that no decision had been made so far.
Vashadze said the issue was so far purely theoretical. "Georgia has not given an answer yet on the question of receiving Guantanamo prisoners," he said.
Government officials in Tbilisi declined to comment further on the matter Wednesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered the Guantanamo detention camp closed by January, and Washington has been pushing for other countries to accept prisoners who have not been charged with wrongdoing.
Fried visited Tbilisi in August, and The Washington Post later reported that Georgia was among those countries with which the United States had held “positive talks” on resettling Guantanamo detainees.
Georgia was one of the United States' staunchest allies under the administration of former President George W. Bush and fought a brief war with Russia over its breakaway province of South Ossetia last year. Tbilisi has been anxious to keep warm relations with Washington, although Obama has vowed to improve ties with Moscow.
At a meeting with President Mikheil Saakashvili in New York on Monday, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Washington continues its support for Georgia's territorial integrity.
A Georgian media report said Tuesday that Clinton and Saakashvili also talked about plans to open up new U.S. military bases in the country.
The United States could open six bases for up to 25,000 troops in Georgia by 2014, the Resonansi newspaper reported, citing unidentified officials. It said the bases were lobbied for by a group of Republican congressmen.
Washington's success in settling more than 200 prisoners at Guantanamo has been slow, and so far only four Uighurs, members of China's Muslim minority, have moved to Bermuda, a British overseas territory in the Atlantic.
Palau, a Pacific Island nation, has offered to take another 13 Uighurs, but only four have agreed to move, The Associated Press reported last week. Washington reportedly offered Palau $200 million in exchange for accepting them.