The United States and European Union said yesterday Syria must allow U.N. inspectors to revisit a suspected nuclear reactor facility leveled in a 2007 Israeli airstrike, Reuters reported (see
GSN, Sept. 13).
(Sep. 17) - International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano, shown Monday at a meeting of his organization's 35-nation governing board. Western powers yesterday encouraged the U.N. nuclear watchdog to invoke its right to conduct a special inspection of a suspected Syrian nuclear site if Damascus continues denying the agency access to the area (Joe Klamar/Getty Images).
International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano in a new
report said Damascus continued to block agency requests to inspect the Dair Alzour site. Monitors have been barred from the area since a June 2008 visit turned up traces of uranium that some experts believe point to nuclear tests geared toward improving abilities to gather weapon-grade plutonium from used nuclear reactor fuel.
The Obama administration would endorse the U.N. nuclear watchdog's use of "all tools" available in investigating Syria's nuclear operations, said Glyn Davies, Washington's ambassador to the agency.
"Unfortunately and with growing concern, information related to Syria's clandestine nuclear activities is deteriorating or has been lost entirely due to Syria's refusal to cooperate," Davies said in released remarks, echoing the IAEA report's suggestion that evidence could disappear from the site with time.
"Necessary information concerning the Dair Alzour site is deteriorating or at risk of being lost entirely," the European Union added, calling on Damascus to permit a new IAEA audit of the site (Westall/Dahl,
Reuters, Sept. 16).
If the Middle Eastern government continued to bar IAEA officials from the area, the nuclear agency should "consider all available measures and authorities to pursue the verification assurances the international community seeks," the Associated Press quoted Davies as saying. The official was referring to the agency's right to conduct a special inspection of any site in the country with little advance warning (George Jahn, Associated Press/
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 17).
A "number of countries" were raising the possibility of the agency carrying out such an inspection, the U.S. ambassador said at a private meeting in August, according to Reuters. "We strongly support the (IAEA) secretariat's use of all tools at its disposal to verify Syria's compliance with its safeguards obligations," he said.
Syrian Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohammed Badi Khattab countered that the Vienna-based organization had "ample proof" that the Dair Alzour facility was not involved in atomic work.
Repeating his country's assertion that uranium traces at the site had been left by the bombing, Khattab urged the U.N. nuclear watchdog to investigate Israel as the source of the particles.
Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh added: "We are looking forward to receiving the reports of swipe samples from the launcher of (the) missile in Israel ... before the source of contamination is cleaned up or destroyed by the Israeli regime" (Westall/Dahl, Reuters, Sept. 16).
