Special Report: U.S. presidential election 2008    

    WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who pledges to close Guantanamo Bay prison camp, said on Sunday that it is challenging to close the notorious overseas prison soon after he is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

    "I think it's going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do," Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

    Asked if he would manage to close the camp within his first 100days as president, Obama said: "That's a challenge."

    However, the president-elect reiterated that "I don't want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our constitution."

    "That is not only the right thing to do but it actually has to be part of our broader national security strategy because we will send a message to the world that we are serious about our values," he added.

    The United States opened the detention facility at its naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba in January 2002, to hold terror suspects and Taliban members mainly captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

    According to the U.S. Department of Defense, despite the fact that hundreds of prisoners have been released to various countries from Guantanamo, there are still 275 remaining in the prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

    Most of the detainees have not been charged with any crimes, and some of them have been held for more than six years.