PARIS – The U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday said for the first time that a
target destroyed by Israeli warplanes in the Syrian desert five years ago was a
covertly built nuclear reactor, countering assertions by Syria that it had no
atomic secrets to hide.
Previous reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency have suggested
that the structure hit could have been a nuclear reactor. Thursday's comments by
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano were the first time the agency has said so
unequivocally.
By aligning the IAEA with the U.S., which first asserted four years ago that
the bombed target was a nuclear reactor, the comments will increase pressure on
Syria to stop stonewalling agency requests for more information on its nuclear
activities.
Amano spoke during a news conference meant to focus on the Fukushima nuclear
disaster after a visit to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development to discuss clean-up efforts at Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear
plant.
"The facility that was ... destroyed by Israel was a nuclear reactor under
construction," he asked in response to a question from The Associated Press,
repeating to the AP afterward: "It was a reactor under construction."
Previous IAEA language has been more circumspect. In a February report, Amano
had said only that features of the bombed structure were "similar to what may be
found at nuclear reactor sites."
Israel has never publicly commented on the strike or even acknowledged
carrying it out. The U.S. has shared intelligence with the agency that
identifies the structure as a nearly completed nuclear reactor that, if
finished, would have been able to produce plutonium for the fissile core of
nuclear warheads.
Syria denies allegations of any covert nuclear activity or interest in
developing nuclear arms. Its refusal to allow IAEA inspectors new access to the
bombed Al Kibar desert site past a visit four years ago has heightened
suspicions that it had something to hide, along with its decision to level the
destroyed structure and later build over it.
Drawing on the 2008 visit by its inspectors, the IAEA determined that the
destroyed building's size and structure fit specifications that a reactor would
have had. The site also contained graphite and natural uranium particles that
could be linked to nuclear activities.
The IAEA is also trying to probe several other sites for possible undeclared
nuclear activities linked to the bombed target but Damascus has been
uncooperative on most counts, saying that most of the sites are restricted
because of their military nature.
