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Nuclear facility in Syria
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Report: IAEA experts visited Syria nuclear site

Qatari newspaper reports UN nuclear watchdog team sent to bombed Syrian facility in hopes of tracing source of uranium residue found there

A delegation of International Atomic Energy Agency experts traveled to Syria and visited the al-Kibar nuclear site that was bombed by Israel in 2007, Qatari newspaper al-Watan reported on Monday.

 

According to the report, the delegation's members took soil samples from the site to try and locate the origin on the uranium found there. Damascus told the experts that the traces of uranium found at the site were remnants from the Israeli strike in the area.

 

In mid-November, the IAEA inspectors visited a nuclear site in Damascus to examine uranium reside found in the state, and the explanation provided for the residue was unsatisfactory.

 

A UN spokesperson said that the inspectors visited the facility following suspicious findings uncovered during the composition of a secret report.

 

Some analysts have said the findings raise the question of whether Syria used some natural uranium intended for the alleged reactor at Dir a-Zur for tests applicable to learning how to separate out bomb-grade plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Syria in the past has denied such allegations.

 

Last February, it was reported that UN inspectors discovered traces of uranium and graphite in samples taken from the site Washington says was a secret graphite nuclear reactor.

 

Furthermore the IAEA said that the uranium found at the site is unlikely to have come from Israeli missiles that bombed it.

 

The IAEA wrote in a report that its "current assessment is that there is a low probability that the uranium was introduced by the use of missiles."

 

It was the first disclosure that graphite particles had turned up and a senior UN official said the discovery of additional uranium traces was a "significant" find, while stressing an IAEA investigation of Syria remained inconclusive.

 


פרסום ראשון: 11.30.09, 14:41
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