West Confident that Syria Was Building Nuclear Weapons Site Before Israeli Attack, Diplomat Says

Key Western nations have agreed that a Syrian building hit by an Israeli air attack last year was part of a nuclear weapons effort undertaken with North Korean cooperation, a senior European diplomat said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 14).

After checking intelligence sources, the Western governments reached “some sort of common ground … that there seems to have been cooperation between Syria and North Korea” at the bombed building, the diplomat said.

Syria has denied that the structure was nuclear in nature and has begun new construction at the site, raising concerns among some experts that Damascus is trying to conceal previous activities there, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

The Western conclusion, however, has not been universally adopted.  Top U.N. nuclear official Mohamed ElBaradei has indicated that his review of photographs of the site before the air strike suggested the structure was not nuclear-related (see GSN, Jan. 8).

Syria has rejected an ElBaradei request to visit the site for further examination (Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 17).

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