Syrian Foreign Ministry denies nuclear facilities in Syria

Oct 17, 2007, 10:43 GMT

Damascus - An official source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied Wednesday media reports that Syria's ambassador to New York, Bashar Ja'afari, had said that Israel attacked a nuclear facility on September 6.

The source said in a statement faxed to the Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa in Damascus that there are no 'such facilities in Syria and this issue had been clarified by Syria in the past.'

The source did not elaborate.

The denial came amid an Israeli Radio report which cited what it called a Syrian representative at UN headquarters in New York as saying the Israeli strike had targeted a nuclear facility.

Meanwhile in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment on the Israeli report, only saying that the IAEA was now in touch with Syrian authorities.

Last Monday, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that the IAEA had no information about any undeclared nuclear facility in Syria and no further information about the reports.

She said the IAEA would investigate any relevant information coming its way and that the IAEA secretariat expected any country which had information about nuclear-related activities in another country to provide that information to the IAEA.