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USA wants UN inspections for Syria’s possible nuclear sites

IAEA should look at mandatory Syria inspection: U.S. By Adrian Croft, LONDON  Aug 3, 2010 LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. envoy to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday it should consider pressing for a mandatory special inspection in Syria to resolve allegations of covert atomic activity.A confidential International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, obtained by Reuters in May, said Syria had revealed some details of past nuclear experiments to U.N. inspectors. But it was still blocking access to a desert site where secret atomic activity may have taken place.

U.S. intelligence reports said the desert site, bombed to rubble by Israel in 2007, had been a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor under construction, geared for atomic bomb fuel.

Syria allowed the IAEA to inspect the site, known as either al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, in June 2008 but has not allowed the agency to revisit it since then…….The IAEA lacks legal means to get Syria to open up because the country’s basic safeguards treaty covers only its one declared atomic facility, an old research reactor IAEA should look at mandatory Syria inspection: U.S. | Reuters

August 4, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Syria, weapons and war | nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear weapons