US: Syria should not mimic Iran nuclear probe block

Nov 21, 2008, 14:28 GMT

Vienna - A senior United States diplomat in Vienna called on Syria on Friday to answer the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) questions about an alleged secret nuclear programme, and not to follow Iran's path of stalling a probe of its nuclear activities.

'Syria is not Iran, and we do not seek to make Syria into Iran,' Gregory Schulte, the US ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna, said in a statement. 'But this requires Syria to cooperate with the IAEA,' he said.

On Wednesday, the IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei issued his first report after his organisation's inspectors visited the al-Kibar site in Syria in June, where the US alleges Syria was constructing a nuclear reactor that was bombed by the Israeli air force in September 2007.

'The Director General's report reinforces the assessment of my government that Syria was secretly building a nuclear reactor in its eastern desert and thereby violating its IAEA safeguards obligations,' Schulte said.

Although the IAEA report did not draw any conclusions, it said images taken before and after the bombing 'are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site.'

So far, Syria has not allowed IAEA inspectors to visit three other sites that may have been related to al-Kibar, nor have inspectors been able to analyse the rubble that was removed from al-Kibar when the site was landscaped soon after the bombing.

Syrian officials have told the Vienna-based agency that al-Kibar, which the report referred to as Dair Alzour, was a conventional military site and that uranium particles found there in June by IAEA inspectors must have originated from material used in Israeli munitions.

A senior official close to the IAEA has said that while he could not rule out this scenario, the uranium found was not of the type normally used in missiles.

Schulte also slammed the Iranian leadership for defying the demands of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to enrich uranium and by not answering the IAEA's outstanding questions about past activities.

The nuclear agency has been probing Iran's nuclear activities since 2003.

The IAEA's governing board is set to take up the issues of Syria and Iran in its upcoming regular meeting from November 27.