Syria move 'not a risk'

2008-11-25 22:13

Vienna - A bid by Syria for aid in planning a nuclear power plant poses no proliferation risk and a Western move to block the project could discredit the UN nuclear watchdog, its chief said in remarks released on Tuesday.

Major Western nations want the project shelved because Syria is under International Atomic Energy Agency investigation over US intelligence that shows it tried covertly to build a nuclear reactor designed to make plutonium for atomic bombs.

Their push has met resistance at an IAEA board of governors meeting from Russia, China and developing states who see no grounds for "politicising" IAEA nuclear energy development aid without proof a country has violated non-proliferation rules.

An IAEA report last week said a Syrian building demolished in an Israeli air raid last year bore similarities to a nuclear reactor and uranium particles, possibly remnants of pre-enriched nuclear fuel, had been found in the area.

But it stressed the findings were preliminary and more on-site checks, and Syrian documentation to prove its denials of covert nuclear activity, were needed to draw conclusions.

IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said the intervention by Western powers against Syria had no legal basis and there was no way Syria could abuse the plant study for military ends.

'Technical feasibility'

Denying nuclear aid due to unproven allegations "is not part of our lexicon, it's not part of our statute", he told a closed session of the 35-nation board on Monday in remarks published by his office. Governors must decide the issue by Friday.

The disputed $350 000 project is a "technical and economic feasibility and site selection" study for a nuclear power station in Syria. It would run from 2009 to 2011.

"All the equipment that is provided is relevant to the project, and is of an innocuous nature. None of it requires any (nuclear) safeguards," ElBaradei said, referring to IAEA oversight meant to prevent diversions into nuclear bomb-making.

"This project did not parachute out of the sky. We have been working with Syria since 1979 ... on different aspects of the feasibility to introducing nuclear power... Thirty years!"

"You all represent governments of law and not of men. The IAEA technical co-operation programme should not be subject to political considerations," ElBaradei said.

He warned if the Syria project were blocked over "political considerations", the IAEA would lose credibility with developing states seeking peaceful nuclear power and it would discourage co-operation by states under investigation.

Two Western diplomats said a compromise on Syria was being discussed under which Washington would drop objections, enabling the project to be approved by consensus, if the IAEA pledged to stagger it to ensure no equipment was introduced until the end.

Tensions simmered

One said the United States had realised it lacked a majority to freeze the project by a rare open vote in the governing body.

An IAEA official said the governors could easily revisit the Syria study next year if by then the inquiry found Damascus to be in "non-compliance" with safeguards rules, as North Korea and Iran were previously, which led to cut-offs of IAEA aid.

Tensions between ElBaradei and US officials have simmered since he declared that intelligence about doomsday weapons work in Iraq used to justify the devastating war that toppled Saddam Hussein was bogus, and was proved correct.

US hardliners then tried - in vain - to foil his re-election as IAEA director.

- Reuters