Beirut - Lebanese judicial authorities on Wednesday released three of the seven people held over the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri, a judicial source said.

The three have been identified as brothers Mahmoud and Ahmed Abdel Aal from Lebanon and Ibrahim Jarjura, a Syrian, the source said.

"The three are out of seven who were held in a Lebanese jail since 2005 on suspicion of withholding information on the Hariri case," the source said without giving further details.

Damascus - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, told reporters in Damascus after meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday that he hoped 2009 would be a year of peace talks.

Solana, who began a week-long trip to the Middle East in Syria Tuesday night, said he had "the feeling there is a desire to push negotiations (with Israel) forward" after his morning meeting with al-Assad and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim.

Solana said that the EU's condemnation of the Islamist Palestinian Hamas group was clear and constant.

Vienna  - A senior Syrian official on Tuesday outright rejected findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that could indicate the country had a secret nuclear facility.

The IAEA and a senior diplomat said last week that the nuclear watchdog agency had found additional particles of man-made uranium as well as traces of graphite in samples taken at an alleged nuclear reactor site that was bombed by Israel in 2007.

Damascus  - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived in Damascus for high-level talks on Tuesday afternoon, at the start of a week-long tour of the region.

Over the course of his two-day stay in Damascus, Solana will meet Deputy Prime Minister Abdallah al-Dardari on Tuesday evening, followed by a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim on Wednesday.

Damascus - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was due in Syria for high-level talks on Tuesday, at the start of a five-day tour of the region.

Over the course of his two-day stay in Damascus, Solana will meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Deputy Prime Minister Abdallah al-Dardari, and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim.

He will next travel to Lebanon and Egypt on February 25, and to Israel on the following day. He will spend February 27 and 28 in the Palestinian territories, before attending a March 2 summit on reconstructing the Palestinian economy in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt.

Damascus  - Presidents, important US senators, senior officials from the Arab League - lately it seems everyone is courting Syria.

In recent months Damascus has been the centre of a flurry of international diplomatic activity.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited. So did a delegation of European Union officials and foreign ministers. Arab League chief Amr Mussa, who hails from Egypt, a country with increasingly fraught relations with Syria, seeks Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's counsel.