Claims that traces of uranium were found at the site of an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor which was bombed by Israel last year prompted a row about politically motivated leaks last week.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the United Nations body was taking very seriously allegations that Syria has a hidden atomic programme. But he declined to confirm that uranium had been detected.
Unnamed diplomats said last week that samples taken by UN inspectors from Kibar in northern Syria contained traces of uranium combined with other elements. The uranium was processed, suggesting some kind of nuclear link.
”It isn’t enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing, but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation,” said a diplomat with links to the Vienna-based watchdog.
Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman, said the agency was drafting its first ever report on Syria and had put it on the agenda of the agency’s governors meeting at the end of this month. But she added that the IAEA’s evaluation of findings from the June visit to the site was not finished and that a public verdict was unwarranted until then.
”We regret that people are trying to prejudge the IAEA’s technical assessment,” she said. ”We are, however, accustomed to these kinds of efforts to hype and undermine the process before every meeting of the IAEA board.”
The IAEA did not challenge the substance of Monday’s revelations about the uranium traces. The concern is that the leak of confidential information could jeopardise future Syrian cooperation.
Syria has repeatedly denied being involved in any illicit nuclear activity. But Damascus fuelled suspicions immediately after last September’s Israeli air strike by razing the remains of the bombed structure it described as a military facility and then stonewalling before reluctantly allowing UN inspectors to visit it.
The US says the site, close to the Euphrates River and the Iraqi border, was a secret nuclear reactor that was almost completed before it was attacked. Israel has never publicly acknowledged carrying out the raid but Israeli officials say privately that the attack helped restore its deterrent capability. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power and, unlike Syria, has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The mystery was compounded in August when the Syrian official charged with liaising with the IAEA, General Muhammad Suleiman, was assassinated by a sniper — a killing which remains unexplained and has fuelled speculation that he was murdered to prevent him being questioned about the nuclear issue. —