Assad. Won't allow supervision
Photo: AFP
Report: 3 suspect Syrian nuke sites off limits
US diplomats say Damascus has told fellow Arab countries it will not permit UN nuclear watchdog probe to extend beyond site bombed by Israel, despite agency interest in three other suspect locations
Syria
has told fellow Arab countries that it will not permit an International Atomic Energy Agency probe to extend beyond a site bombed
by Israel,
despite agency interest in three other suspect locations, diplomats told The Associated Press Tuesday.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei announced Monday that Syria had agreed to an agency check of US assertions that the target was a plutonium-producing reactor that was near completion, and thus at the stage where it could generate the fissile material for nuclear arms.
The agency's main focus on its planned June 22-24 visit to Syria is a building in the country's remote eastern desert that was destroyed in September by Israeli jets.
Get in Line
Damascus lambasts Israel, US over demands UN nuclear watchdog agency conduct visits to Syrian facilities
But the agency is also interested in following up on information that Syria may have three other undeclared atomic facilities. Diplomats and a nuclear expert told the AP Monday that at least one of the sites is believed to be meant to reprocess nuclear material into the fissile core of warheads.
One of the diplomats said the IAEA was following up on a US intelligence-based tip but emphasized the IAEA had not seen the intelligence itself. The nuclear expert said two of the military sites were operational and one was under construction. He and the diplomats asked for anonymity because their information was confidential.
Syria to gradually warm up?
On Tuesday, a senior diplomat familiar with the planned IAEA Syria trip told the AP that expectations were Syria would gradually warm to the idea of giving agency experts access to those three sites, as well as the bombed al Kibar facility.But two other diplomats briefed on the Syrian stance said outside a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board that a senior official from Damascus ruled that out during a meeting with chief delegates of the 10 Arab nations accredited to the IAEA.
The diplomats said Syrian atomic energy chief Ibrahim Othman told the Arab delegates that his country could not open secret military sites to outside perusal as long as Syria and Israel remained technically in a state of war.
After fighting three wars and clashing in Lebanon, Israel and Syria are bitter enemies whose last round of peace talks collapsed eight years ago. Both countries recently confirmed that they are holding peace talks through Turkish mediators.
As well, they said, Othman expressed fear that too much openness on Syria's part would lead to years of relentless international scrutiny of the kind Iran's nuclear program is now undergoing, despite Tehran's assertions its aims are purely peaceful.
After-hours calls to the Syrian Mission to the IAEA in Vienna for comment went unanswered.
