During the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Syria was building a nuclear reactor whose specifications would have allowed it to produce fissile material for use in nuclear weapons.
This was stated by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi at a meeting of the agency’s Board of Governors in Vienna, Liga.net reports.
According to him, the reactor’s configuration and technical characteristics were highly effective for producing fissile material that could be used directly to create nuclear weapons.
Grossi noted that the IAEA cannot assess the intentions of the Syrian authorities because the facility’s existence was never declared and its purpose was consistently denied. He called the situation “a very serious problem” from the standpoint of nuclear non-proliferation.
This concerns a reactor in Deir ez-Zor province in eastern Syria which, according to the IAEA, was being built by North Korea. Previously, the agency believed that Assad’s regime had a large-scale undeclared nuclear programme.
During an August visit to Syria, IAEA inspectors also visited a previously undeclared site. There, they found about 73 tonnes of metallic natural uranium in the form of clad fuel rods.
To reach the material, inspectors had to break through walls and make their way through narrow passages. According to Grossi, the uranium is now under IAEA safeguards, and the agency has installed cameras at the site.
The Syrian government is to decide the material’s future. At the same time, the IAEA insists on always knowing its whereabouts.
- In Syria, the process of destroying the remnants of chemical weapons that belonged to Bashar al-Assad’s regime has officially begun. Syria’s chemical stockpile was built up over decades.
- For a long time, the country maintained one of the world’s largest stockpiles of nerve agents, including sarin and VX, as well as mustard gas