Syria has decided to end its nuclear secrecy and has pledged full cooperation with UN attempts to probe evidence that it secretly built a reactor that could have been used to make nuclear arms, The Associated Press reported on Sunday based on a confidential document shared with the news agency.
According to the report, Syria’s sudden readiness to cooperate with the UN is likely an attempt at derailing U.S.-led attempts to have Damascus referred to the UN Security Council.
Cooperation by Syria would end three years of stonewalling by the country of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has been trying to follow up on strong evidence that the reactor, which was bombed by the Israeli Air Force in September of 2007, was a nearly built nuclear reactor that would have produced plutonium once active.
An IAEA report last week said the Vienna-based agency “assesses that the building destroyed ... was a nuclear reactor.” The assessment encouraged Washington and its allies to push to have Syria reported to the Security Council by a 35-nation IAEA board meeting next month.
AP reports that this apparently triggered Syria’s decision to compromise. In a confidential note sent Friday to IAEA board members, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano cited top Syrian nuclear agency officials as saying “we are ready to fully cooperate with the agency” on its probe of the suspect site. Amano said the pledge was made in a letter dated Thursday, two days after his agency delivered its assessment.
AP noted, however, that Washington is continuing its push for Syria to be reported, and has put forward a restricted draft of a resolution to be voted on at the IAEA board meeting beginning June 6. If passed, the resolution would report Syria to the U.N. Security Council for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The draft, contents of which were made available to AP on Sunday, notes “with serious concern” Syria's refusal to allow IAEA inspectors follow-up visits to the bombed site. As a consequence, says the draft, the board “decides to report ... Syria’s noncompliance with its NPT commitments.”
Despite the fact that Syria’s latest moves will complicate Western attempts to bring its nuclear secrecy to the attention of the Security Council, AP noted that Washington said it remained committed to trying.
A letter dated Friday from the U.S. mission that was sent to board members with a copy of the draft resolution notes, “We are aware that the Syrian government has sent a letter to the IAEA regarding the agency's long-standing requests for full Syrian cooperation. Such cooperation would indeed be welcome but would not have any bearing on the finding of noncompliance” by Syria.
Syria has denied hiding a nuclear program, but has constantly refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the bombed site as well as three other Syrian sites under military control, whose appearance was altered by landscaping after inspectors requested access to them. The IAEA complained already last September that Syria was refusing to cooperate.
In February, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Western intelligence agencies had detected another nuclear plant in Syria, this time in a Damascus suburb.
Satellite photos which had been analyzed showed the existence of the nuclear complex, which is smaller than the one bombed by Israel in 2007.