Vienna  - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei called on Syria Thursday to allow further inspections of the country's alleged nuclear programme.

In his statement before the IAEA board of governors, ElBaradei also urged Iran to clarify open questions on past studies that were possibly related to the development of nuclear weapons.

Vienna  - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) members on Wednesday approved nuclear aid for Syria, despite misgivings of several western countries that are concerned about Syria's alleged secret nuclear programme, according to diplomats.

Western countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Australia and Canada only reluctantly approved the 350,000-dollar project to find a suitable location for a nuclear power plant in Syria, which is under suspicion of having secretly built a reactor at al-Kibar in its eastern desert.

The site was destroyed by the Israeli air force in September 2007.

Vienna  - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) members on Wednesday approved nuclear aid for Syria, despite misgivings of several western countries that are concerned about Syria's alleged secret nuclear programme, according to a diplomat at the meeting.

The United States, France, Britain and Australia, among others, did not want to approve the 350,000-dollar project to find a suitable location for a nuclear power plant in Syria, which is under suspicion of having secretly built a reactor at al-Kibar in its eastern desert until it was destroyed by the Israeli air force in September 2007.

Manama, Bahrain  - The speaker of the Syrian People Assembly, Mahmoud al-Abrash, said on Tuesday that allegations of a secret military nuclear programme by his country were fabricated.

"There are attempts to accuse Syria of having a military nuclear programme despite all the assurances and the reality on the ground that prove that Syria has no nuclear programme," al-Abrash told repoters in Manama at the end of an official two-day visit to Bahrain.

"We don't have a nuclear program but we have a plan that aims to rid the region of mass destruction weapons and we are honestly pointing out the fact that Israel is the country with the largest arsenal of mass destruction weapons in the region."

Brussels - The European Union and Syria on Tuesday moved closer to signing an Association Agreement, which will eventually grant the Middle Eastern country access to the bloc's neighbourhood funds.

At a meeting in Brussels, officials from the European Commission and Syria said they had agreed on a series of technical updates to the agreement, which was initialled in
2004 but subsequently frozen as a result of the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Vienna - Western countries on Monday questioned proposed nuclear technology aid for Syria, while developing countries did not want to defer the project for the country that allegedly worked on a secret nuclear reactor, diplomats said.

In a meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) member states, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also defended the project that Syria applied for with his organization.

At issue is a project worth 350,000 dollars, to be spent over three years, in which the IAEA would help Syria define a suitable location for a nuclear reactor.