IAEA team to visit Syria to probe atomic claim

Vienna: A UN watchdog team will visit Syria near the end of June as part of an investigation into claims from US intelligence that Damascus secretly built an atomic reactor, the agency's chief said on Monday.

The alleged reactor site was destroyed in an Israeli air raid last September and Washington handed over intelligence to the International Atomic Energy Agency in April for verification purposes. Syria has denied any covert nuclear arms project.

IAEA Director Mohamed El Baradei told a meeting of the agency's 35-nation board of governors, "It has now been agreed that an agency team will visit Syria during the period 22-24 of June. I look forward to Syria's full cooperation in this matter."

He did not say whether Syria, which had not responded for months to IAEA requests for access needed for the inquiry, would allow inspectors to examine the Al Kibar site bombed by Israel in the country's remote northeast desert.

A Western diplomat said the Vienna-based UN watchdog wanted to inspect not just Al Kibar but two other sites with possible nuclear links.

Syria said US intelligence pointing to an almost completed graphite reactor erected with the help of North Korea was completely fabricated.