Syria bars atomic inspectors probing North Korea link

Published on Saturday 9 August 2008 19:56

SYRIA has blocked a new visit by International Atomic Energy Agency experts seeking to follow up on intelligence that Damascus built a secret nuclear programme with the help of North Korea.

Diplomats also said Washington was circulating a note among members of the IAEA board opposing a Syrian push for a seat on the 35-nation board. The board normally works by consensus and a seat held by Damascus could thus hamper any investigation into its alleged nuclear activities.

Syria fears an extensive atomic agency investigation similar to the probe Iran has been subjected to for more than five years.

"Syria's election to the board while under investigation for secretly building an undeclared nuclear reactor not suited for peaceful purposes would make a mockery" of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, said the note.

The diplomats said the US was pushing to encourage Kazakhstan to challenge Damascus for the seat, but the Kazakhs are apparently reluctant to do so, fearing lack of support.

Syria rejected the IAEA request for a visit late last month, the diplomats said. The visit would have been a follow-up to an initial trip by IAEA inspectors in June.

"The Syrians said that a visit at this time was inopportune," a senior diplomat said.

That appeared to leave open the possibility of a later visit. But one of the other diplomats said members of the Syrian mission to the IAEA were spreading the word among other missions that further trips beyond the one in June were unlikely.

If so, that could cripple international efforts to probe US allegations that a site in a remote part of the Syrian desert, which Israel destroyed last year, was a near-finished plutonium-producing reactor built with North Korean help, and that Damascus continues to hide linked facilities.

IAEA experts returned on June 25 from a four-day visit, carrying environmental samples from the Al Kibar site hit by Israel in September. Those are now being evaluated.

They had hoped to use a follow-up visit to put questions to Syrian officials based on the intelligence available to them outlining years of extensive cooperation between the Syrians and teams of visiting North Korean nuclear officials.

North Korea exploded a nuclear device in 2006. However, it agreed to dismantle its weapons programme early last year.