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.
USA
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