Partial results of samples from a Syrian site bombed by Israel show nothing to back up US assertions that the target was a secret nuclear reactor, diplomats said on Saturday.
The diplomats cautioned that the results from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) probe were preliminary and that findings of more detailed tests were still outstanding.
Still, two of the three diplomats said that IAEA officials did not expect the results from the samples still being tested to strongly contradict the first results.
All three diplomats were informed of the status of the IAEA probe but demanded anonymity because their information was confidential.
Washington says the al-Kibar site that Israel destroyed last year was a near-finished plutonium-producing reactor built with North Korean help and that Damascus continues to hide linked facilities.
While allowing a small IAEA team to visit the bombed structure in the desert earlier this year, Damascus subsequently turned down an agency request to revisit that and other suspect sites. That, and no evidence of a nuclear program from the rest of the samples, could spell the end of the investigation into the US allegations.
IAEA inspectors looking for unreported nuclear activity usually test for radioactivity. But in this case, their mission was more difficult.
According to intelligence given to the Vienna-based agency by the US, Israel and a third, unidentified country, the alleged reactor was not yet completed at the time of the bombing on Sept. 6 last year.
That meant no nuclear material would have been present.
The inspectors therefore looked for minute quantities of graphite, which is used as a cooling element in the type of North Korean prototype that was allegedly being built. Such a reactor contains hundreds of tonnes of graphite and any major explosion would have sent dust over the immediate area.
But — if they were interested in a cover-up — the Syrians would have scoured the region to bury, wash away and otherwise remove any such traces. Long before the time of the June IAEA visit to the site, it had been encased in concrete that served as the foundation of a new building erected by the Syrians.
Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright, whose US-based Institute for Science and International Security closely tracks suspect secret proliferators, said another possibility was that the Israeli bombs did not penetrate deeply enough into the building to disperse the graphite.
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