The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said that Syria had a right to the agency’s help in planning a power-producing power reactor — a move diplomats described as a rejection of US-led efforts to block the aid.
The clash reflected tensions between IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei and key Western nations over whether Syria should be given potentially sensitive nuclear guidance at a time when it is being investigated.
Russia, China and developing nations also back the aid project, said diplomats who spoke on Monday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the IAEA talks.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said it was “totally inappropriate, we believe, given the fact that Syria is under investigation by the IAEA for building a nuclear reactor outside the bounds of its international legal commitments.”
“And then for the IAEA to be involved in providing technical information concerning nuclear activities would seem to be contradictory, if not ironic,” McCormack said.
A report circulated last week by ElBaradei confirmed that soil samples taken at the site of a building in Syria bombed last year by Israel revealed “a significant number” of uranium particles.
The report also said that satellite imagery and other information appeared to bear out US intelligence that the building was a nuclear reactor — one Washington said was nearly completed and almost ready to produce plutonium, a fissile warhead component.
Syria denies hiding nuclear activities. But the report strengthened both concerns that it might have something to conceal and arguments from the US and its allies that Damascus should not be offered agency help in planning its civilian reactor.
Beyond helping the Syrians develop expertise, the US$350,000 aid project would send the wrong signal about a country under investigation by the IAEA, critics like the Americans argued.
Those concerns were voiced again on Monday, diplomats inside the closed meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board said.
US delegate Geoff Pyatt was outspoken in opposition to the planned project and received backing from the EU, France, Britain, Australia and Canada, the diplomats said.
Some of the strongest objections came from Australia, said one the diplomats, citing that nation’s statement.
“We find it difficult to accept the agency embarking on such an all-encompassing and ill-defined nuclear power project at a time when Syria is evidently withholding cooperation from the agency ... a serious concern,” the statement said.
But ElBaradei disagreed, saying there was no legal basis to cancel or postpone the program.
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