WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The Obama administration has sent six Uighur Chinese detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the Pacific island nation of Palau, the Center for Constitutional Rights said on Saturday.

The transfer leaves 215 detainees at the detention camp which President Barack Obama has pledged to close by Jan. 22. though political and legal hurdles are making it difficult for his administration to meet that goal.

Palau has agreed to take up to a dozen Uighurs who come from China's largely Muslim far-west region of Xinjiang and were captured by the U.S. government during the Afghanistan war launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

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