By Abdelwaheb El-Gueyed, KUNA,
Vienna : Syria announced readiness to receive inspectors from nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, June 22, to inspect military facilities and settle issues regarding controversy over an alleged military nuclear reactor, which Israel claimed was under construction in the Arab country.
Israel had last September bombed a Syrian military facility and claimed the hit was aimed at an under construction military nuclear reactor.
An Arab diplomatic source, taking part in the IAEA Board of Governors session Wednesday, told KUNA Syria is not the least anxious over the IAEA team’s two-day visit.
Damascus’ concession to the visit comes within years of constructive cooperation with the agency to counter US claims of untoward action and to appease the international community of the state’s commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The source expressed strong belief the visit would prove Syria has no banned activity or military nuclear facilities, and that the site that was bombed by Israel was a conventional military facility.
Israel, he said, was the only country in the region in possession of nuclear weaponry and is subject to no international monitoring, which seriously compromises the region’s stability and casts doubt on adequacy of the NPT and its implementation.
On the timing of this development, the source said Syria has been under pressure on this issue for a long time now, for its own stances as well as its support of Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology.
“We are extremely anxious over attempts to put pressure on members of the IAEA, particularly developing nations, to forego their attempts to obtain peaceful nuclear technology, citing the NPT as pretext.
“The IAEA Charter states all developing nations have the right to peaceful nuclear technology,” the source reiterated.
The senior source finally said Arab countries are constantly calling the international community to abandon the double standards through which this issue was addressed so far.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory L. Schulte said the reason for the delay in calling for IAEA inspection in Syria after the Israeli strike last September was that Washington first left the call to the IAEA itself. Once it proved tardy, the US made the demand that the agency sends inspectors to the sites concerned in the controversy.
Media reports had reported western officials, close to the talks on this matter, saying Syria will only allow the inspectors into the site which was attacked on the Euphrates River, but would ban their entry to at least three other facilities the US claims might have a connection to an underground Syrian nuclear weapons program.