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Syria shuns IAEA call for more inspectors access
[Al Arabiya Latest] Syria dismissed on Saturday 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 by an Israeli air raid 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. "We will not allow anything beyond the agreement because Syria does not have a military nuclear programme. Syria is not obliged to open its other sites to inspectors," Moualem said after meeting his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger. 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. Posted by: Fred 2010-02-21 |
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