GENEVA (AP) -- The U.N. refugee agency says it's in talks for the U.S., Germany and several other European countries to take in thousands of Syrian refugees.

Agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says U.N. and government officials are discussing the temporary resettlement of about 10,000 of the 1.6 million registered refugees from Syria's civil war.

Edwards told The Associated Press on Tuesday that "resettlement is only one of the tools we use, and tends to apply to a very small number of highly vulnerable individuals of any refugee population," such as those fleeing political persecution.

He says the U.S. and Germany traditionally offer the biggest such help.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said his country has agreed to take in 5,000 Syrian refugees, but only a couple of hundred would gain a permanent home.