Syria 'turned away new IAEA visit'

Vienna: Syria has blocked a new visit by International Atomic Energy Agency experts seeking to follow up on intelligence that Damascus was hiding a nuclear programme built with the help of North Korea, diplomats said on Saturday.

The diplomats also said Washington was circulating a note among members of the IAEA board opposing a Syrian push for a seat on the 35-nation board.

The board normally works by consensus and a seat held by Damascus could thus hamper any investigation into its alleged nuclear activities.

Syria fears a massive atomic agency investigation similar to the probe Iran has been subjected to more than five years.

"Syria's election to the board while under investigation for secretly ... building an undeclared nuclear reactor not suited for peaceful purposes would make a mockery" of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, said the note.

The diplomats said that the US was pushing to encourage Kazakhstan to challenge Damascus for the seat, but the Kazakhs apparently are reluctant to do so, fearing lack of support from its nominating group of Mideast and Central Asian nations.

Syria rejected the IAEA request for a visit late last month, the diplomats said. The visit would have been a follow up to an initial trip by IAEA inspectors in June.

Further trips

"The Syrians said that a visit at this time was inopportune," said a senior diplomat, who, like two others agreeing to discuss the issue, demanded anonymity.

That appeared to leave open the possibility of a later visit. But one of the other diplomats said members of the Syrian mission to the IAEA were spreading the word among other missions that further trips beyond the one in June were unlikely.

If so, that could cripple international efforts to probe US allegations that a site in a remote part of the Syrian desert, which Israel destroyed last year, was a near-finished plutonium-producing reactor built with North Korean help, and that Damascus continues to hide linked facilities.

IAEA experts came back June 25 from a four-day visit, carrying environmental samples from the Al Kibar site hit by Israel in September. Those are now being evaluated.