Syria on Thursday rejected US President George W. Bush's accusations of Syria's support to terrorism in his State of the Union speech as baseless.

"Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region," Bush said in his speech.

"It seems that the State of the Union address derived these accusations from inaccurate reports," said Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bushra Kanafani in a statement.

"There has been dialogue with several US officials and they expressed their appreciation and understanding of what we said about various issues, including those that are used as a pretext to accuse us of terrorism," she said.

"Our position in support of peace is clear," she added.

The spokeswoman also clarified Syria's efforts on border security with Iraq, saying Damascus was doing all it could to prevent fighters' crossing into Iraq.

"Syria has been doing its utmost to secure the border, and it has repeatedly said that it wants a security agreement with Iraq but the Iraqi interim government so far did not send any official to sign this agreement," she said.

Syria and Iraq have been discussing ways to improve security along their 600-km common border since July 2004.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in a January visit that Syria had made progress on the issue but needed to do more.

On the Syrian peace track with Israel, Kanafani called on Washington to play an active role in "pushing for a positive and constructive response to Syria's calls for peace."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made several overtures in recent months to restart peace negotiations with Israel, but only got a cold shoulder.

Syrian-Israeli peace talks foundered in 2000 over the fate of the strategic Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.

Washington slapped economic sanctions on Damascus last May, accusing it of supporting terrorism and seeking unconventional weapons, which were denied by Syria.