The UN nuclear watchdog chief clashed with some Western nations over their bid to block aid for a planned Syrian nuclear power plant, saying US intelligence pointing to secret Syrian atomic work was unproven.
Diplomats at a 35-nation meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency governors said Washington, major European Union nations and other Western allies favoured shelving the project while Syria was under IAEA investigation over the US reports.
China, Russia and developing nations rejected the Western challenge as "political interference" undermining the IAEA's programme to foster civilian atomic energy development.
Western nations were alarmed by an IAEA report last week saying a Syrian building demolished in an Israeli air raid last year bore similarities to a nuclear reactor and inspectors later found striking amounts of uranium particles in the area.
The findings were not enough to prove a covert reactor of North Korean design meant to yield plutonium for atom bombs was there, as US intelligence indicated, the report said.
But further on-scene checks there and at several military sites in Syria, as well as Syrian co-operation with repeated requests for documentation to prove its denials of covert nuclear activity, were essential to draw conclusions, it said.
IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei urged governors to approve the aid project, saying there was no legal basis for curbing Syria's IAEA membership rights based on unverified accusations.
"There are claims against Syria, which we're looking at. There were claims against Iraq, which were proven bonkers (mad), and after, the result was a terrible war," he said in remarks to the closed gathering relayed to Reuters.
US assertions Saddam Hussein had a mass-destruction weapon programme led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq but proved unfounded.
"So we have to be very careful when we talk about an investigation," ElBaradei said. "Even people who are not a lawyer would know that people and countries are innocent until proven guilty. And we continue to act on that basis," he added.-Reuters