Global Security Newswire

Syria has continued to prohibit a second International Atomic Energy Agency visit to the site of a suspected nuclear reactor destroyed in a 2007 Israeli airstrike, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said in a report issued yesterday (see GSN, May 13).

Damascus has said the facility at Dair Alzour was a military installation with no nuclear applications. Observers have asserted that the site housed a reactor that was possibly being built for military purposes with support from North Korea, Reuters reported.

Samples taken from the facility in June 2008 "indicated the presence of particles of anthropogenic natural uranium" that "points to the possibility of nuclear-related activities at the site and adds to questions concerning the nature of the destroyed building," Amano recounted in the report.

Syria has not cooperated with the IAEA investigation on the plant since allowing the one-time collection of samples -- barring additional inspections of the Dair Alzour site, which was razed after to the attack, or visits to three other facilities, according to the quarterly safeguards report, which was obtained by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

"Such access is essential to enable the agency to establish the facts and make progress in its verification, while protecting military and other information which Syria considers to be sensitive," the safeguards report states (Sylvia Westall, Reuters, May 31)

In a March 31 inspection conducted at a separate nuclear reactor site in Damascus, IAEA officials received Syrian details "concerning previously unreported activities involving the conversion of [uranium] yellowcake to uranyl nitrate." Syria indicated that the conversion work took place in 2004 and involved "tens of grams of nuclear material."

"Syria submitted draft inventory change reports concerning the newly declared nuclear material. The information provided by Syria is still being assessed," Amano said in the report (Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, June 2).

"These were (experiments) with small quantities in order to learn the [irradiation and conversion] processes," one high-level official with knowledge of the IAEA investigation told Reuters. "They should have been reported to the IAEA under the safeguards agreement."

Uranium particles found previously at the Damascus reactor suggest Syria might have drawn samples from a uranium cache intended for Dair Alzour to perform tests relevant to isolating weapon-usable plutonium from spent nuclear reactor fuel, some experts said.

Amano also called on Damascus to sign the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which would allow for more intrusive oversight of Syrian nuclear facilities.

The U.N. agency's 35-nation governing board is expected at its meeting next month to address Syria's nuclear activities (Westall, Reuters).