Diplomats: US asks IAEA for full Syria report
US dissatisfied with brief oral report on status of probe into bombed Syrian site
The United States asked the UN nuclear monitoring agency Thursday for a fuller accounting of its probe of Syria's alleged efforts to secretly develop a plutonium-producing facility at a site bombed by Israel.
A senior Syrian envoy in turn accused Washington of using "twisted logic" in pressuring his country instead of condemning the Israeli attack.
"When you shield the aggressor and when you accuse the victim it is ... being not only an accessory to the crimes committed, but also encouraging more crimes," Syrian Ambassador Mohammed Badi Khattab told The Associated Press.
He also urged the new US administration taking office next year to play a more active role in Turkish-mediated Syrian-Israeli efforts to reach a peace agreement.
"Without the US being in the negotiations, there is no guarantee that what you agree upon will be implemented," he said. Because the US is "the only country that has this unique relationship with Israel ... (it) has the duty to influence its position in moving forward," said Khattab.
The United States has hung back from directly engaging Syria, insisting it must stop support for Lebanon's Hizbullah and other groups labeled by Washington as terrorists as part of any move into the mainstream fold.
Khattab is also his country's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency. He spoke after US chief representative Gregory L. Schulte suggested his country was dissatisfied with a brief oral report on the status of an IAEA probe of allegations that Syria was working on covert nuclear program that included a nearly finished reactor bombed by Israel a year ago.
'What does Syria have to hide?'
"Given the gravity of the issue ... the United States looks forward to a comprehensive report ... detailing, in writing, the status of the investigation" at the November meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board, Schulte told board members, in comments to the closed meeting made available to reporters.
A diplomat inside the meeting later said that about half a dozen US allies, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea backed the call for a written report.
Detailing allegations of months of efforts by Syria to alter the al-Kibar site and rid it of any evidence it was a nuclear facility, Schulte asked: "What does Syria have to hide?"
In his oral report Monday, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the board meeting that preliminary results from environmental samples taken in June from the bombed site came up with "no indication" to back the claims that the destroyed target was a nuclear facility.
