Syria faces UN atomic agency inspection

Syria has agreed to allow inspectors into the country to check alleged nuclear activities, the UN's nuclear watchdog announced on Monday.

"It has now been agreed that an agency team will visit Syria during the period 22-24 of June. I look forward to Syria's full co-operation in this matter," Mohamed ElBaradei told a meeting of the agency's 35-nation board of governors," reports The Times of London.

The visit of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) comes after Syria was accused of launching a covert nuclear program with North Korean aid – an accusation Syria has always denied. Last September, Israeli fighter planes bombed a desert facility in the east of the country, which, the US government said, was being used for nuclear purposes, reports The New York Times.

The atomic agency, the nuclear monitor of the United Nations, had pledged to investigate after American intelligence officials released evidence in late April of what they described as a clandestine nuclear reactor that had been "nearing operational capability" a month before the bombing.

The evidence included a series of close-up photographs of what the Americans claimed was the partly built reactor before its destruction. The Israeli airstrike on Sept. 6 spurred international debate over whether the Syrians were starting a secret program to make nuclear weapons.

Syria has strongly denied the charges. However, it wiped the Euphrates site clean of rubble late last year and erected a new building where the destroyed one had been — a step nuclear experts said would complicate the job of hunting for atomic clues. Some analysts said the rapid cleanup and new construction had been tacit admissions of guilt.

CNN says that the IAEA now wishes to investigate these claims for itself:

[Mr.] ElBaradei said the agency has been discussing the matter with Syrian authorities since it learned of the allegations in April, eight months after the Israeli strike.

The purpose of the talks, ElBaradei said, was to arrange "a visit to Syria at an early date to verify, to the extent possible at this stage, the veracity of the information available to the agency.

"Syria, like all states with comprehensive safeguards agreements, has an obligation to report the planning and construction of any nuclear facility to the agency," the IAEA chief said.

According to The Washington Post, the US government is pushing for the IAEA to enter Syria with a wider assignment, suspecting the existence of several other nuclear facilities:

The Bush administration is pressing U.N. inspectors to broaden their search for possible secret nuclear facilities in Syria, hinting that Damascus's nuclear program might be bigger than the single alleged reactor destroyed by Israeli warplanes last year.

At least three sites have been identified by U.S. officials and passed along to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is negotiating with Syria for permission to conduct inspections in the country, according to U.S. government officials and Western diplomats. U.S. officials want to know if the suspect sites may have been support facilities for the alleged Al Kibar reactor destroyed in an Israeli air raid Sept. 6, the sources said.

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