Vienna - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) members
on Wednesday approved nuclear aid for Syria, despite misgivings of
several western countries that are concerned about Syria's alleged
secret nuclear programme, according to diplomats.
Western countries, including the United States, France, Britain,
Australia and Canada only reluctantly approved the 350,000-dollar
project to find a suitable location for a nuclear power plant in
Syria, which is under suspicion of having secretly built a reactor at
al-Kibar in its eastern desert.
The site was destroyed by the Israeli air force in September 2007.
At a meeting on the IAEA's technical aid budget that started
Monday, developing countries insisted that the nuclear agency's aid
projects should not become politicised.
On Monday, the IAEA dismissed criticism from Western countries who
said it was too early for Syria to receive assistance on reactor
siting and related training and scientific equipment, since the
country is officially still in the earliest stages of planning.
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said that 'the priorities
in our technical cooperation programme are the priorities of
individual countries and should not be subject to political
considerations.'
Consensus on the Syrian project was achieved with the help of a
text accompanying the decision, which took note of the West's 'strong
reservations' and effectively said the issue could be revisited if
Syria was formally found to have violated IAEA rules.
'The (IAEA) Secretariat stated that, in the discharge of its
functions, it would monitor the project closely, report as
appropriate, and ensure that any equipment provided is used only for
the purpose intended,' the text said.
The 35 countries on the governing board of the Vienna-based agency
are set to focus on Syria and Iran in a regular meeting scheduled for
Thursday and Friday.
Without drawing any conclusions, ElBaradei noted last week that
the features of the destroyed al-Kibar site were what was to be
expected at a nuclear reactor, and that IAEA inspectors had found
uranium particles there.
Inspectors first visited al-Kibar in June, after having been
pointed to the site by US intelligence.
The IAEA board of governors is also set to discuss ElBaradei's
latest report on Iran, in which he stated his concern that the
country was not answering outstanding questions on past studies that
were possibly related to nuclear weapons development.
The report also noted that Iran was continuing to enrich uranium,
in defiance of calls by the United Nations Security Council to
suspend this activity.
'Suspension has no meaning at all in Iran's culture and no such a
thing exists,' the chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation,
Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh, was quoted as saying Wednesday by the official
IRNA news agency.
Aqazadeh also announced that more than 5,000 centrifuges are now
actively running at the country's uranium enrichment plant, in
contrast to the figure of around 3,800 given in the IAEA report.
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