Syrians take UN nuclear team check in their stride

Dubai: The mood in Damascus seems undisturbed by the visit of a three-member nuclear inspection team to Al Kibar site, 500km northeast of the capital.

Professor Geogges Jaboour, Member of the Syrian Parliament, told Gulf News the general opinion about the nuclear accusations against Syria is that these are silly and are not worth any attention.

"Syrian leaders have decided to allow the inspection in order to show the world that Israel is the country which violates the international law not Syria. If there is little fairness in this world, the mission will find nothing to talk about when they return to Geneva," he said.

Other Syrian officials contacted by Gulf News refused to comment on the mission of the three-member team lead by Ollie Heinonen of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The team left Damascus yesterday with no indications about the findings in Syria. Local media imposed a total blackout about the IAEA mission in Syria.

'Not another Iraq'

Al Kibar site came to the spotlight following an Israeli and US accusation about Syria hosting an illegal nuclear reactor in the remote the site near the city of Dier Al Zoor.

Israeli warplanes struck the site on September 6 last year, which Syria said was a deserted military installation, but the United States and Israel said it was a nuclear reactor built with assistance from North Korea.

Journalists from Damascus, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Gulf News the local media ignored the visit and gave no details about the movement of the team because the technical mission of the team should remain within its framework and not become a public issue.

"Apart from the official statement about Syria's permission to allow IAEA inspectors to conduct a limited visit to the site, there was no mention about the delegation and their works in Syria," a journalist said.

"We don't want to repeat what happened in Iraq when inspection became a TV drama," he said.

The Geneva-based IAEA spokeswoman told Gulf News she has no information about the mission of the inspection team to reveal at this stage. "The team will submit an official report to Mohammad Al Baradei, Director General of IAEA, once they arrived to Geneva," she said.

Melissa Fleming, head of the information department at IAEA, said earlier that the agency had no information about any undeclared nuclear facility in Syria and no information about any violation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratified by Damascus in 1969.

In a reference to Israel and the United States, she said any country that has intelligence about illegal nuclear activities in Syria should have had passed the information to IAEA instead of taking a unilateral action.