UN Nuclear Agency Inspects Syria Site
Source: Alalam.ir, 22-06-2008
DAMASCUS--UN nuclear agency's inspectors were due in Damascus on Sunday to launch a probe into US allegations that a desert complex in remote northeast Syria was a covert nuclear site.
The head of International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei says there is no evidence Syria had the skills or fuel to run a nuclear complex.
The ‘Israeli' occupying regime carried out an air invasion on the Syrian desert complex last year and then nine months after the attack, the US officials passed on intelligence imagery to the IAEA claiming that the site was a nascent reactor that could have yielded plutonium for atom bombs.
Damascus categorically dismissed the US allegations, saying that the US photos were fabricated or doctored and that ‘Israeli' regime has targeted a military building under construction in remote northeast Syria near the Iraq border.
US failed to alert the UN nuclear agency before the ‘Israeli' regime's air strike last year, which make it hard to verify what the target actually was, the IAEA chief says.
Referring to the June 22-24 mission headed by his deputy, El-Baradei said in a German media interview on June 7 that the agency would "do everything in our power to clear things up."
"But it is doubtful that we will find anything there now, assuming there was anything there in the first place."
Syria's only declared nuclear facility is an old research reactor under IAEA monitoring which looks unable to develop atomic power, El-Baradei has said.
Officials in Damascus have denied concealing anything from the IAEA in possible violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Syria told a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation governing board in Vienna two weeks ago it would cooperate with the inquiry and grant access to the al-Kibar site struck by 'Israeli' regime's warplanes.
The IAEA team will be led by Olli Heinonen, head of its global inspectorate, and include two nuclear technology experts familiar with Syria, diplomats said.
They were set to have a range of talks in Damascus around a day trip to al-Kibar.
A senior diplomat close to the IAEA said: "The delegation will want Syria to explain what was at the (bombed) site."
"If Syria still says it was no reactor, they will want information to substantiate that. There is a plan to take samples on the spot," the diplomat added.
The delegation will not inspect other sites but will seek to persuade Syrian officials to allow IAEA inspections.
DAMASCUS--UN nuclear agency's inspectors were due in Damascus on Sunday to launch a probe into US allegations that a desert complex in remote northeast Syria was a covert nuclear site.
The head of International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei says there is no evidence Syria had the skills or fuel to run a nuclear complex.
The ‘Israeli' occupying regime carried out an air invasion on the Syrian desert complex last year and then nine months after the attack, the US officials passed on intelligence imagery to the IAEA claiming that the site was a nascent reactor that could have yielded plutonium for atom bombs.
Damascus categorically dismissed the US allegations, saying that the US photos were fabricated or doctored and that ‘Israeli' regime has targeted a military building under construction in remote northeast Syria near the Iraq border.
US failed to alert the UN nuclear agency before the ‘Israeli' regime's air strike last year, which make it hard to verify what the target actually was, the IAEA chief says.
Referring to the June 22-24 mission headed by his deputy, El-Baradei said in a German media interview on June 7 that the agency would "do everything in our power to clear things up."
"But it is doubtful that we will find anything there now, assuming there was anything there in the first place."
Syria's only declared nuclear facility is an old research reactor under IAEA monitoring which looks unable to develop atomic power, El-Baradei has said.
Officials in Damascus have denied concealing anything from the IAEA in possible violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Syria told a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation governing board in Vienna two weeks ago it would cooperate with the inquiry and grant access to the al-Kibar site struck by 'Israeli' regime's warplanes.
The IAEA team will be led by Olli Heinonen, head of its global inspectorate, and include two nuclear technology experts familiar with Syria, diplomats said.
They were set to have a range of talks in Damascus around a day trip to al-Kibar.
A senior diplomat close to the IAEA said: "The delegation will want Syria to explain what was at the (bombed) site."
"If Syria still says it was no reactor, they will want information to substantiate that. There is a plan to take samples on the spot," the diplomat added.
The delegation will not inspect other sites but will seek to persuade Syrian officials to allow IAEA inspections.
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