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Diplomats: Syria may have buried evidence of nuclear reactor
By Reuters
Tags: nuclear, UN, Syria, IAEA

United Nations investigators believe Syria may have buried traces of a
suspected covert nuclear reactor under concrete, diplomats said Sunday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency began probing Syria in April based on U.S. intelligence suggesting that a remote desert complex, bombed by Israel last September, was a nuclear reactor, almost completed with the cooperation of North Korea. According to the same intelligence, the reactor was designed to make plutonium for atom bombs.
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Satellite pictures indicated Syria swiftly bulldozed the area, removed debris and erected a new building in a possible cover-up, U.S. nuclear analysts say.

Syria has denied hiding nuclear activity from the UN watchdog and said the bombed site at al-Kibar was an ordinary military building. It gave IAEA inspectors access in
June.

Partial results of environmental swipe samples showed no traces of carbon or maraging steel, an especially strong alloy of the metal that would have indicated a graphite reactor, diplomats familiar with the inquiry told Reuters.

The diplomats said Syria has rebuffed IAEA requests to revisit al-Kibar and examine three military sites seen as interlinked, on the grounds that doing so would breach the country's national security.

Full test results from the June mission may not be available until November and may not prove conclusive either, the diplomats said.

U.S. intelligence indicated the reactor had not begun to process material before Israel's attack, so there would have been no radioactive material to detect.

"This doesn't mean there was nothing there, just that the inspectors did not (or could not) search the right places," said a senior Vienna diplomat versed in the matter who asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities.

"Syria laid a big slab of concrete over it [ground where the alleged reactor stood] after digging a hole. Ideally the IAEA should be able to examine the chunks of debris but the feeling is that the Syrians may have dumped all of it down the hole.

IAEA Director Mohammed ElBaradei, opening a regular meeting of the agency's 25-nation board of governors on Monday, was expected to say the Syria inquiry remained inconclusive and inspectors required further cooperation from Damascus.

Unlike Iran's disputed nuclear work, Syria was not on the board's official agenda because inspectors, lacking substantive findings, submitted no written report for debate.

Still, the United States and Western allies were expected to call in statements for Syrian transparency and full cooperation.

ElBaradei has rebuked the United States and Israel for not alerting the IAEA of their suspicions before the bombing, saying the "shoot first and ask questions later" approach has made it much harder for the UN watchdog to establish the truth.

A European diplomat said Syria's tough posture and slowness reacting to requests for access reminded some of ally Iran's stonewalling of IAEA probes into whether Tehran has tried to adapt explosives and missile cones for nuclear weapons.

Defying UN resolutions and sanctions, Iran is expanding a uranium enrichment campaign that potentially could generate electricity or fuel a bomb. Iran says it wants only to generate peaceful energy from enriched uranium.

Diplomats also said Syria and Iran were seeking to fill an open seat on the IAEA board to the dismay of Western nations.

Iran was likely to bow out since, being under UN sanctions over its disputed nuclear work, but Syria might be able to seek consensus from a Middle East and South Asia (MESA) group that must nominate a successor to Pakistan for a one-year board term.

Related articles:
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