By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) - A White House meeting on the future of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay is no longer on the schedule for Friday, an official said after news reports that the Bush administration was nearing agreement on closing the controversial facility.

U.S. officials tried to play down the idea that a decision was close, although they reiterated President George W. Bush's stated desire to shut the detention center.

Critics, including some of Washington's allies, have called for Guantanamo to be closed and said the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects there infringed their human rights.

"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."

A meeting on the subject had apparently been considered for Friday but then taken off the calendar.

"It's no longer on the schedule for tomorrow," said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "Senior officials have met on the issue in the past, and I expect they will meet on the issue in the future."

The Bush administration has suffered several legal setbacks over the imprisonment of terrorist suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

About 380 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives are held at Guantanamo.

In the most sweeping, the U.S. Supreme Court a year ago struck down Bush's initial system of military trials for Guantanamo prisoners. But Bush late last year pushed through the then-Republican-led Congress a law that created a new system of military tribunals.

Perino said several steps would have to be taken before Guantanamo could be closed, including setting up military commissions and the repatriation to their home countries of detainees who had been cleared for release.

"These and other steps have not been completed," she said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has suggested Congress should explore with the White House ways to close the prison, while not releasing its most dangerous detainees.

Human rights groups have demanded that Guantanamo be closed and detainees charged with crimes or released.

But Vice President Dick Cheney is said to have expressed strong concerns about alternatives to Guantanamo that might involve bringing detainees into the legal system in the United States.

Bush has called the prison a necessary tool in his war on terrorism but has acknowledged that it has tarnished the U.S. image abroad.

(Additional reporting by Kristin Roberts and Jeremy Pelofsky)

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