IAEA Taking Syria Nuclear Allegations Seriously

Via USAToday.com -

The chief U.N. nuclear inspector said Tuesday his agency is taking allegations of a secret Syrian atomic program seriously and urged the country to cooperate fully with his investigation.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also urged other nations with information that could help the investigation to share what they know.

He spoke a day after diplomats told The Associated Press that IAEA samples taken from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor contained traces of uranium combined with other elements -- a finding that merits further information.

Syrian officials had no comment Tuesday. Syria has previously denied any covert nuclear program. Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad has said Damascus would consider a request by the nuclear watchdog to revisit the bombed site.

Elbaradei, who spoke to reporters in the Czech capital after meeting Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, declined to comment on what the diplomats said, telling reporters only that his agency still has "a number of questions" linked to the allegations.

Indirectly criticizing Israel for launching the strike more than a year ago, ElBaradei said "the fact that we were not allowed to investigate that issue before the facility was destroyed" had made the probe "much more complicated for us."

The U.S. says the facility was a nearly completed reactor that -- when on line -- could have produced plutonium, a pathway to nuclear arms.

In the IAEA's Vienna headquarters, agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the latest findings on Syria are "still being drafted and our assessment and evaluation is still under way."

"Once it is finished, the report will be submitted to the IAEA Board of Governors ahead of its next meeting, which is scheduled to take place on 27-28 November."

For his part, Elbaradei urged "Syria to give us maximum transparency."

"But I also continue to call on all these countries who have any information including satellite imageries to share it with the agency," Elbaradei said.

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According to An-Nahar (LEBANON), Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Wednesday that reports about traces of uranium found at al-Kibar could be remnants from the Israeli air strike that destroyed the site in September 2007.