IAEA finds ‘tons’ of nuclear material in Syria; Damascus: We’ll keep it for ‘peaceful’ energy use
DAMASCUS — The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said Tuesday that its inspectors had found several tons of nuclear material in Syria, at a site which the authorities said they reported to the agency last month.Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), praised Damascus’s “courageous decision” to report the undisclosed site, which dates to the Assad era, and said the material would be put under “international safeguards.”“We are talking about a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use,” he said.Speaking at a joint press conference with Grossi, however, Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani indicated that the material would be used toward a peaceful nuclear energy program.“On July 17, we sent an official letter to the agency, in which we declared of our own free will the presence of nuclear materials at an undeclared site within the legacy left by the…
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Tuesday that its inspectors discovered several tons of nuclear material in Syria. IAEA head Rafael Grossi praised Syria's "courageous decision" to report the previously undisclosed site, dating back to the Assad era, and stated the material would be placed under "international safeguards." Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani confirmed that Syria had voluntarily declared the material on July 17, asserting Syria's "sovereign and legal right" to use nuclear energy "for civilian and peaceful purposes." Grossi also visited the Deir Ezzor site, bombed by Israel in 2007, where he noted that ongoing excavation work "validates the longstanding evaluation of the IAEA that a nuclear facility was being built in secrecy."
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