Syria makes a smart move

Under pressure from the US, and quite possibly from Israel too, an inspection team from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will visit Syria later this month to probe allegations that it conceals a "secret" nuclear programme.

Damascus, which maintains that there is nothing to hide, has welcomed the mission and said the team would be allowed access to a site bombed by Israel last year. The US claims the site was a nuclear facility.

President Bashar Al Assad, in his statements published in Gulf News yesterday, said the site was "an old military facility". If Syria wanted to develop nuclear energy, he said, it would be for peaceful purposes, fully transparent and under the umbrella of the Arab League.

The Syrian decision to welcome the IAEA mission is therefore a smart one. The team will surely find nothing to prove the US/Israeli allegations. But the mission should highlight the other important issue - to make the Middle East free of nuclear and unconventional weapons.

Yesterday, the Syrian official press said it rightly: "Israel [also] should be called on to submit its own nuclear installations to international inspection so at least we know how many nuclear weapons it possesses."