Syria to co-operate with nuclear inquiry

Syria has told UN nuclear watchdog governors it will co-operate with an inquiry into claims the country secretly built an atomic reactor.

The US alleges Syria was building an undeclared nuclear facility, which could be used to make plutonium for bombs, and the reactor was close to completion before it was destroyed in an Israeli air raid in September.

The United States and Europe called on Syria to let UN investigators go wherever and check whatever they wanted on their trip to Syria later this month.

Syria, a US adversary and ally of Iran whose secretive uranium enrichment programme has been under investigation since 2003, has made no public comment on the inspector mission but has told a closed governors' meeting it will co-operate.

Ibrahim Othman, Syria's atomic energy agency director, said inspectors could visit the remote desert site where Washington says the reactor was built.

One diplomat said: "He (Othman) said Syria had displayed transparency by agreeing to let inspectors visit al-Kibar (bombed site) and had raised no obstacles so far,

"He said they would leave it up to agency experts to discover the truth, namely that the United States fabricated this evidence and such claims, if pressed, would endanger peace and security in the Middle East," he said.

"The gist from (Othman) was that Syria would co-operate with the UN," a diplomat close to the agency said.

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