De IAEA is wat strenger geworden onder de nieuwe directeur, zo lijkt het. Dat is een goed teken. De VS, Israel en andere Westerse landen kunnen nog zulke goede bewijzen hebben van de ontwikkeling van een kernwapen door Iran, maar ook Syrië, als een VN lichaam het zegt heeft dat nou eenmaal meer impact.
The United States said the site bombed by Israeli warplanes three years ago at al Kubar, around 60 km (37 miles) west of the city of Deir al-Zor, was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to making weapons-grade plutonium.
The IAEA report lent public support for the first time to the U.S. assessment.
Dat betekent dat Israel dus niet zomaar aanviel, zoals velen in het Westen beweren en ook de teneur was in de media. Er is een reden dat Syrië niet meewerkte met de IAEA en inspectie van deze en andere plaatsen weigerde.
RP
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Syria dismisses IAEA call for more access to nuclear sites
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent, News Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151066.html
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent, News Agencies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151066.html
France, Syria sign 11 cooperation agreements; France working to revive indirect Israel-Syria talks.
Syria on Saturday dismissed an International Atomic Energy Agency recommendation to allow its inspectors unrestrained access, days after the agency said a bombed Syrian complex could have been a nuclear site.
An IAEA report said on Thursday that uranium particles found at a Syrian complex destroyed in an Israeli air strike in 2007 suggest the possibility of covert nuclear activity at the site.
The report by new IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano prodded Syria to adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which permits unfettered inspections beyond a declared nuclear site to check out any covert atomic activity.
"We are committed to the non-proliferation agreement between the agency and Syria and we (only) allow inspectors to come according to this agreement," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said after meeting his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger. "We will not allow anything beyond the agreement because Syria does not have a military nuclear program. Syria is not obliged to open its other sites to inspectors."
"We are committed to the non-proliferation agreement between the agency and Syria and we (only) allow inspectors to come according to this agreement," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said after meeting his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger. "We will not allow anything beyond the agreement because Syria does not have a military nuclear program. Syria is not obliged to open its other sites to inspectors."
Moualem did not address the findings of the latest IAEA report on Syria and repeated Syria's position that its nuclear activities are peaceful and related mostly to medicine.
The United States said the site bombed by Israeli warplanes three years ago at al Kubar, around 60 km (37 miles) west of the city of Deir al-Zor, was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to making weapons-grade plutonium.
The IAEA report lent public support for the first time to the U.S. assessment.
"Unlike Israel, our program is peaceful," Moualem said, referring to the Arab view that Israel has a massive nuclear arsenal that contributes to Middle East instability.
Previous IAEA reports on its investigation into Kubar said lack of Syrian cooperation impeded the investigation.
United Nations inspectors examined the site in June 2008 but Syrian authorities has barred them access since and did not let them visit three military sites.
The IAEA has also been checking whether there could be a link between the particles uncovered at Kubar and similar traces detected in swipe samples taken at a Damascus nuclear research reactor later in 2008.
The report said Syria had refused a meeting in Damascus last month to address the issue. But inspectors now planned to visit the research reactor on Feb. 23.
Syria, is an ally of Iran, which is under IAEA investigation over its nuclear facilities. Moualem said Western proposals for fresh UN sanctions on Iran were counterproductive.
"We do not think sanctions will solve the issue," he said. "They will complicated the chances for a constructive dialogue between Iran and the West."
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on during a visit to Syria on Saturday that world powers would have to take new action against Iran if Tehran made no further gestures.
During Fillon's Saturday visit to Damascus, France and Syria signed 11 cooperation agreements bolstering ties in agriculture, civil aviation, culture and administrative cooperation. The bilateral trade is estimated to be around 800 million euros.
The deals were signed after Fillon met with his Syrian counterpart Mohammad Naji al-Otri to discuss ways of boosting economic relations between the two countries.
"The visit of the French Prime Minister to Syria comes to mark a new stage of cooperation between Syria and France," al-Otri said after their meeting.
Fillon, who is the first French Prime Minister to visit Syria in more than three decades, said that his country is keen on achieving fruitful cooperation with Damascus.
On Friday, Fillon met with Syrian President Bashar Assad to discuss the political developments in the region and the stalled peace process.
Fillon said that in the coming weeks France will act intensively to revive indirect talks between Israel and Syria, with Turkey as the mediator. These talks broke down in December 2008 when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
Syrian-French relations have witnessed growing development since Assad visited Paris in July 2008 and French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Syria a couple of months later.
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