Syria’s government is allowing UN nuclear inspectors to investigate the suspected secret nuclear programme pursued under former ruler Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
Syria informed the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in July about large quantities of nuclear material and allowed an initial inspection, according to a joint statement by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during Grossi’s visit to Syria.<\/p>\n
“We are talking about a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use,” Grossi said.<\/p>\n
US news outlet Axios reported last week that the material included yellowcake, a mildly radioactive uranium concentrate that can be processed into nuclear reactor fuel, among other uses.<\/p>\n
The IAEA has not provided details on the material.<\/p>\n
Israel attacked and destroyed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 in an effort to prevent the country from using the facility to produce nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
In a 2011 investigation, the IAEA concluded that the site had housed a secret nuclear reactor with similarities to a reactor in nuclear-armed North Korea.<\/p>\n
However, resistance from the al-Assad government and Syria’s civil war prevented UN inspectors from fully investigating the suspected secret nuclear activities on the ground.<\/p>\n
The investigation has gained new momentum since al-Assad was ousted in December 2024.<\/p>\n
During his visit to Syria, Grossi inspected the former reactor site as well as another location linked to the nuclear material, according to the statement.<\/p>\n
Syria and the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, agreed on concrete steps to resolve outstanding questions surrounding the country’s past nuclear activities, al-Shaibani and Grossi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syria’s government is allowing UN nuclear inspectors to investigate the suspected secret nuclear programme pursued under former ruler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[13058,9043,45910,43476,16721,12114,70377,269,11844,95],"class_list":["post-254958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-iaea","tag-international-atomic-energy-agency","tag-nuclear-activities","tag-nuclear-material","tag-nuclear-programme","tag-nuclear-reactor","tag-nuclear-reactor-fuel","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-rafael-grossi","tag-syria"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117118103921686864","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}