Channels

Alleged Syrian nuclear facility bombed by Israel last year (Archive photo)
Photo: AP

Syria rejects opening military sites to atom probe

Head of Syria's Atomic Energy Commission tells IAEA assembly his government's 'full cooperation' with nuclear investigation 'will not come at the expense of exposing our military sites or causing a threat to our national security'

Syria said on Friday it was cooperating fully with a UN inquiry into its nuclear activity but would not go as far as opening up military sites because this would undermine its national security.

 

Diplomats say the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has asked to examine several Syrian military installations, but the comments from Damascus clearly ruled this out.

 

The Vienna-based UN Nuclear watchdog has been probing Syria since May over US Intelligence allegations that it almost built a secret, plutonium-producing reactor before Israel destroyed the site in an air strike a year ago.

 

Syria—an ally of Iran, which is the subject of a much longer-running, and now stalled, IAEA investigation—has denied having a clandestine nuclear program.

 

The IAEA said last week that preliminary findings from test samples taken by inspectors granted a visit to the desert location in June bore no traces of atomic activity. Syria says all that was there was a disused military building.

 

"We would like to underline that my government is cooperating with the agency in full transparency and will follow suit all along the way," said Ibrahim Othman, director-general of Syria's Atomic Energy Commission.

 

"However, this cooperation will not in any way come at the expense of exposing our military sites or causing a threat to our national security," he told the annual meeting of the IAEA's 145-nation General Conference, or assembly, in Vienna.

 

Diplomats close to the IAEA have said Syria has ignored agency requests to check three military installations believed connected to the alleged reactor site.

 

'Fruitful cooperation with IAEA'

An IAEA probe into unverified intelligence about covert atomic bomb research by Iran has hit the same stumbling block— the barring of inspectors from military sites to which the IAEA has no legal right of access without proof of nuclearization.

 

Iran has dismissed the intelligence, provided by 10 countries, as fabricated. The IAEA says the allegations are "serious" but Iran has not supplied evidence to refute them.

 

IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei has credited Syrian cooperation so far but said last week he looked for Damascus to show "maximum transparency" and provide all information needed for the agency to draw conclusions.

 

Western states accused Syria in assembly debate of preventing full access for IAEA sleuths to documentation, officials and sites they said was needed to get to the bottom of the matter.

 

Othman also urged the gathering to back Syria's candidacy for a two-year seat on the IAEA's 35-nation, policymaking Board of Governors, strongly opposed by Western nations since Damascus is under investigation over proliferation concerns.

 

He said Syria played a "positive role" during an earlier tenure on the board and had a record of "fruitful cooperation" with the IAEA in peaceful applications of nuclear know-how.

 

Syria's only declared nuclear site is an older research reactor. Syria is competing with Western-backed Afghanistan for a slot on the board reserved for a representative of the Middle East and South Asian (MESA) group in the General Conference.

 

Diplomats said MESA had failed to reach the usual consensus on one candidate and the assembly therefore was expected to vote on both candidates later on Friday. That would be a rare and divisive step in a global body that prides itself on consensus.

 

The winner would be chosen by a simple majority. Western diplomats said they had a majority of about 90 for Afghanistan including all European Union members, Japan, Canada, Australia and some African, Asian and Latin American countries.

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.03.08, 15:54
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment