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US demands Syria cooperate on nuke plan
American ambassador to UN nuclear watchdog says Damascus must decide whether it plans to follow in Iran’s footsteps or cooperate on its alleged atomic program. A failure to do so, he warns, would lead to punishment measures
Roee Nahmias
| Published: | 12.13.08, 09:26 / Israel News |
A warning to Syria: US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Gregory Schulte says Syria has three months – until the United Nations nuclear watchdog’s next governors’ meeting in March – to start cooperating on its nuclear program, or it will be punished. A failure to do so, he warns, will lead to “punishment measures”.In an interview published Saturday with the London-based Arabic-language al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, Schulte said that “the Damascus authorities must decide whether they wish to follow in Iran’s footsteps or cooperate.”Schulte also noted that North Korea has neither denied nor confirmed its involvement in the construction of the Syrian nuclear reactor allegedly bombed by Israel.”I hope the Syrians reach the conclusion that they should cooperate, for the sake of their own interests,” he said.
According to Schulte, if Damascus failed to cooperate “this would lead to a negative response, and serious questions would be raised”.
Schulte refused to discuss the sanctions which would be imposed on Syria if it continued its policy, saying that the IAEA’s goal at this time is to convince Damascus to cooperate.”No one is talking about sanctions today. The only thing we are talking about is a probe. The international agency is giving the Syrians an opportunity to cooperate, and they have an extension until the next meeting to cooperate.”
He added that this was not an official extension, but a date on which the nuclear watchdog would reexamine the Syrian nuclear issue, after the matter was discussed in the council’s latest meeting two weeks ago.Despite his reservations, Schulte added that “Syria is engaging in a tactic used by Iran in recent years – the failure to cooperate. This is not the road we want Syria to take. We hope Syria cooperates fully with the agency in regards to what happened in the Syrian desert. If they fail to cooperate, there will be consequences.”
Syrian reactor before bring bombed by Israel (Archive photo: AFP)
Only two weeks ago, the IAEA decided to provide Syria with technical support as part of its efforts to develop a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes. This decision was a serious blow to the United States and Israel, who have been working in the past year to thwart this move, claiming Damascus is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
The UN nuclear watchdog has been probing Syria since May, following American intelligence reports which stated that Damascus was close to completing the Pyongyang-supervised construction of a nuclear reactor for the production of plutonium, at the site bombed by Israel.
According to reports published last month, IAEA inspectorsdiscovered uranium traces at the secret site attacked by Israel in September 2007. Syria denied claims that it had tried to attain nuclear energy for military purposes, violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it had signed.
IAEA chief says efforts against Iran ‘a failure
Mohamed ElBaradei tells LA Times he considers five years of US, international efforts to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions a failure, brushes aside argument that Iran determined to launch war on Israel
Ynet
| Published: | 12.06.08, 12:16 / Israel News |
“We haven’t really moved one inch toward addressing (Iran’snuclear ambitions),” Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was quoted by the LA Times as saying.
According to the report, published Saturday, the IAEA chief considers five years of US and international efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions a “failure”, as Tehran moves ever closer to obtaining the means to develop weapons of mass destruction.
ElBaradei told the LA Times he felt optimistic about an eventual US-led settlement between Tehran and the West.The 66-year-old Egyptian diplomat and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate said US President-elect Barack Obama gave him “lots of hope” after he inserted a proposal to abolish all nuclear weapons in the Democratic Party platform and advocated opening diplomatic dialogue with rivals.”He is ready to talk to his adversaries, enemies, if you like, including Iran, also (North) Korea,” ElBaradei said, adding that the Bush administration was reluctant to do so. “To continue to pound the table and say, ‘I am not going to talk to you,’ and act in a sort of a very condescending way - that exaggerates problems.”According to the LA Times, some Western diplomats accuse the IAEA of not being tough enough on the nuclear ambitions of countries such as Iran, Syria and North Korea.
Mark Fitzpatrick, an arms control expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London told the newspaper that “from a Western perspective, he’s been too quick to give the benefit of the doubt to Iran and shade his reports sometimes in ways that sometimes downplayed Iran’s violations and lack of cooperation.”
‘Different shades and colors in Iran’
Other experts, according to the report, said ElBaradei has walked a tightrope of criticism from both Iran and US allies such as Israel.
During his interview with the LA Times, the head of the nuclear watchdog said that in retrospect, the sanctions may have led to “more hardening of the position of Iran.”Many Iranians who even dislike the regime (are) gathering around the regime because they feel that country is under siege,” he said.
ElBaradei continued to say that one hope of a diplomatic solution was for the US and Iran to meet to begin talking, not just about nuclear technology but also about grievances that stretch from the 1950s, when the US helped overthrow a democratically elected government, to the present, when Iranian and American surrogates vie for supremacy in several Middle East battlegrounds.
He further argued for a “grand bargain” between the West and Iran that recognizes Tehran’s role in the region and gives it “the power, the prestige, the influence” it craves.
According to the LA Times, ElBaradei brushed aside the argument of some US analysts who describe Iran as a messianic state determined to obtain nuclear weapons to launch a war against its archnemesis, Israel.
“When I go to Iran I see . . . that there are all different shades and colors in Iran, from atheist to religious zealots,” he said. “So Iran is no different than any other country. I mean, they are connected with the rest of the world.”
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Iran using ‘fraud and evasion’ to promote nuclear agenda
Foreign Ministry warns international community against complacency, says recent IAEA report on Islamic republic’s nuclear program does nothing to lessen concern over Tehran’s nuclear program
Israel accused Iran of continued “fraud and evasion,” pursuant to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and said that “there is nothing in Iran’s response that should lessen the concern of the international community vis-à-vis its nuclear program.”
According to the IAEA report, the Islamic republic was continuing to defy United Nations demands to suspend uranium enrichment - a process used to make both nuclear fuel and the fissile material for an atom bomb.
“Regrettably, as a result of the lack of cooperation by Iran in connection with the alleged studies and other associated key remaining issues of serious concern, the agency has not been able to make substantive progress on these issues,” said the restricted report.
“This report emphasizes again that Iran is repeatedly violating UN Security Council decisions. It underscores the military elements in Iran’s nuclear activities,” the Foreign Ministry said in an official statement.
“Despite the fact that the IAEA takes the information presented to it at face value, Israel once again calls on members of the international community to increase the pressure on the Iranian government in order for it to abandon its threatening program to achieve nuclear energy,” the statement read.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , who will set out for Washington on Sunday, is expected to spend much of his time discussing the issue of a nuclear Iran. He hopes to be able to convince the American administration to advance sanctions against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.
Senior Israeli officials believe there is still time to stop the Iranian nuclear program in its tracks and are exploring all options to do so. In addition to diplomatic appeals to the US and European nations, including Russia, they hinted that non-diplomatic options are “still on the table.”
Syrian site hit by Israel resembled an atomic reactor
The final report of the International Atomic Energy Agency Wednesday, Nov. 19, says the Syrian complex bombed by Israel 14 months ago bore features resembling those of an undeclared nuclear reactor. “Significant” amounts of man-made uranium particles were found in situ. Those features include the proximity of the site to the adequate pumping capacity of cooling water required by a reactor.
This report will be submitted the nuclear watchdog board meeting in Vienna on Nov. 27-28. Damascus is accused of failing to produce requested documentation to support its declaration about the nature of the building and refusing follow-up IAEA visits to three other locations suspected of harboring possible evidence linked to Israel’s target.
DEBKAfile was the only publication to report that the Israeli attack targeted more than one Syrian site. Washington says that the site was a nascent reactor meant to produce plutonium for atomic bombs.
The nuclear watchdog asks Syria for more cooperation and to show debris and equipment whisked away from the site demolished by Israel for further examination.
DEBKAfile’s military sources stress that the IAEA report attests to one of the most formidable feats of Israel’s external intelligence agency Mossad in conjunction with the US CIA.
Syrian president Bashar Assad is now confirmed as having been in the process of building nuclear weapons intended for attacking Israel.
IAEA drafts report on Syria atom probe
UN nuclear watchdog publishes written report on alleged Syrian nuclear site bombed by Israel last year for first time since probe began, suggesting evidence of nuclear activity may have been found
The UN nuclear watchdog is drafting an investigative report on Syria for the first time, suggesting to Western diplomats the agency has found some sign of undeclared activity at a site bombed by Israel last year.
Moreover, Syria has been made an official agenda item at the year-end November 27-28 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, unlike previously when IAEA officials said initial inquiries were inconclusive.
The IAEA has been probing Syria since May over US intelligence allegations that it was close to completing a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor with North Korean help before Israel flattened the site in an air strike.
Syria denies pursuing nuclear energy for atomic bomb purposes in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It says the unverified US intelligence was fabricated.
A restricted copy of the 35-nation meeting’s agenda said Syria was added to address a pending report by IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei, similar in format to those issued quarterly on an agency probe into Iran’s secretive nuclear program.
“The agency clearly thinks it has something significant enough to report to put Syria on the (nuclear safeguards) agenda right after North Korea and Iran,” said a senior diplomat with ties to the Vienna-based UN watchdog.
“We do not have firm word on what the inspectors found (at the site), only that the findings suggest there are more questions to pursue,” said another senior diplomat accredited to the agency.
ElBaradei told an IAEA board meeting in September that preliminary findings from test samples taken by inspectors granted a visit in June to the desert location hit by Israel bore no traces of atomic activity.
Diplomats said the IAEA apparently had now evaluated all the environmental swipe samples but exactly what the sleuths found remained unclear and would be laid out in the report.
Syria says all that was there was a disused military building, not a clandestine nuclear complex of North Korean design that could have yielded plutonium for atomic bomb fuel as Washington has maintained.
It told the IAEA in September it was cooperating fully with the IAEA inquiry but would not go as far as opening up military sites because this would undermine its security.
ElBaradei said then that Syrian cooperation had been “good” but Damascus needed to show “maximum cooperation” for the agency to draw conclusions.
Diplomats close to the IAEA say Syria has ignored agency requests to check three military installations that may have harbored materials connected to the alleged reactor site.
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