A Syrian site held infrastructure “consistent with a nuclear reactor”, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a confidential report seen by AFP on Tuesday, adding that the country under ousted former leader Bashar al-Assad “failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities”.
Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency last month visited two sites, one in Deir Ezzor and a second location related to nuclear material identified by Syria.
“Based on observations made by the agency at the Deir Ezzor site, the agency confirms that the cooling infrastructure which has now been uncovered is consistent with that of a nuclear reactor,” the IAEA said.
The agency said it would continue to monitor the activities at the site “as the excavation work progresses”.
“Based on the information provided by Syria and the results of the agency’s verification activities conducted at several locations in Syria, the agency is able to establish that the former Syrian authorities had failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities,” it said.
Besides the “nuclear reactor under construction” at the Deir Ezzor site, the IAEA listed a fuel fabrication plant, where the nuclear fuel for the reactor was manufactured, and a location where the nuclear fuel, as well as uranium scrap and waste were stored.
Grossi said last month in Damascus that IAEA inspectors had found several tons of nuclear material in Syria, at a site Damascus reported to the agency in July.
– 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal –
He praised Damascus’s “courageous decision” to report the undisclosed site, which dates back to the rule of al-Assad.
In its report, the IAEA said it found around 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal”, comprising 55 tonnes of fuel rods and the rest uranium scrap and waste.
No nuclear material or equipment was found at two other locations in Syria which the agency visited on August 19, it said, adding it was still awaiting results from environmental samples taken.
The IAEA confirmed its previous assessment that the reactor under construction was a gas-cooled graphite moderate nuclear reactor, it said.
In the report, IAEA head Rafael Grossi welcomed “Syria’s transparency and cooperation with the agency”.
“Syria has taken measures to remedy the situation by providing to the agency the required nuclear material accounting reports and design information” for the facilities, the report said.
Last month, Grossi visited the site in Deir Ezzor in the east, which has been shut for 18 years.
In 2018, Israel admitted carrying out a top-secret air raid against the site 11 years earlier.
In 2008, less than a year after the strike, US officials accused Syria of having sought to build a secret nuclear reactor and acknowledged that Israel had destroyed it in the raid.
The UN atomic watchdog declared in 2011 that the Syrian site was “very likely” to have been a nuclear reactor, adding that information provided to it suggested that it was being built with North Korean assistance.
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