Subscribe to Print Edition | Fri., June 06, 2008 Sivan 3, 5768 | | Israel Time: 21:57 (EST+7) web haaretz.com   Back to Homepage Rosner's Domain Diplomacy Defense Jewish World Opinion National Print Edition Advertising Books Peres Conference Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File

Last update - 18:01 05/06/2008 Diplomats: Syria will let IAEA visit only one suspected nuclear site By News Agencies Advertisement It was the first exchange on the Syrian nuclear issue by the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ahead of a IAEA inspector mission to Syria from June 22 to 24. Damascus has denied any clandestine nuclear activity. The United States says the reactor was designed to yield plutonium for bombs. Syria, a U.S. adversary and ally of Iran whose secretive uranium enrichment programme has been under IAEA investigation since 2003, has made no public comment on the inspector mission but confirmed its acquiescence to the closed governors' meeting. Otham said inspectors could visit the remote desert site where Washington says the reactor was close to completion before it was destroyed in an Israeli air raid in September. "He said Syria had displayed transparency by agreeing to let inspectors visit al-Kibar (bombed site) and had raised no obstacles so far," one diplomat there told Reuters. "He said they would leave it up to agency experts to discover the truth, namely that the United States fabricated this evidence and such claims, if pressed, would endanger peace and security in the Middle East," he said. "The gist from (Othman) was that Syria would cooperate with the IAEA," said a diplomat close to the agency. Syria has said Israel's target was a disused military building. Nuclear analysts say satellite imagery since the bombing show the site was bulldozed and swept clean, possibly to purge any traces of nuclear activity. Diplomats said earlier that Syria had rejected IAEA interest in three other locations Washington believes harboured facilities for producing plutonium from fuel generated by the reactor. They said the stance of Syria, which is in a technical state of war with Israel, was that the other sites were military installations crucial to national security and off limits to the the IAEA because they had no nuclear connection. That spurred the United States and European allies to demand that Syria not handicap the agency investigation in any way. "The EU is deeply concerned by information pointing to a possible undeclared nuclear facility in Syria," the European Union said in a speech delivered by chairman Slovenia. "We call on Syria to cooperate fully..., provide the necessary information and give all the access requested." Summarizing Washington's suspicions, U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte accused Syria of camouflaging the reactor for years and "going to great lengths" after the bombing to remove debris, usually at night "under the cover of tarpaulins." "Syria's obfuscations and concealment efforts raise many troubling questions," he said. "If it were intended for a civil nuclear energy programme, why not declare the reactor to the IAEA... as Syria was obligated to do? What does Syria have to hide?" Schulte called for "pro-active" Syrian cooperation with the investigation and said the IAEA governors expected a report on findings before their next regular meeting in September. A Western security source said Syria was "very afraid of intrusive inspections" because this could expose vestiges of nuclear work and therefore was likely to prevent inspectors from performing certain environmental tests at al-Kibar. "It is clear we are heading towards a long stonewalling process, as in Iran," he told Reuters. U.S. intelligence given to the IAEA in April included before-and-after aerial photographs of the alleged reactor and detailed interior images of what it said were key components. Syria has one old research reactor under IAEA monitoring. 1345 050608 GMT Bookmark to del.icio.us   Terrorist donuts U.S. Arabs irate over criticism of celebrity cook's kaffiyeh. All the way to hell Rosner's blog: It's Obama's good intentions that pro-Israel activists fear.

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