The International Atomic Energy Agency has resolved outstanding safeguards questions concerning Syria’s past nuclear activities after Damascus provided the agency with access and information, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Sept. 14.
Grossi told the IAEA’s General Conference in Vienna that the development resolves a safeguards matter that had remained open for nearly two decades and follows increased cooperation between the agency and Syria.
“A year ago, I informed the General Conference of my meeting in Damascus with President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, which had just taken place,” Grossi said in his statement. “The tide was beginning to turn on a serious safeguards matter that had been unresolved for almost two decades.”
Grossi said he visited the Dair Alzour site in Syria last month. The IAEA previously assessed that a building destroyed there in 2007 was “very likely a nuclear reactor under construction” that Syria was required to declare under its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards agreement.
“Today, I can tell you that, having received the necessary access and information from Syria and having evaluated the safeguards-relevant information available to us, the agency has been able to clarify and resolve its questions concerning the outstanding safeguards issues related to Syria’s past nuclear activities,” Grossi said.
Grossi credited the development to “Syria’s transparency and cooperation” as well as the IAEA’s work.
The Dair Alzour facility was destroyed in September 2007, and the IAEA has spent years seeking clarification about the site and other undeclared nuclear activities in Syria.
The development comes as the IAEA faces significant challenges in its safeguards work elsewhere in the region. Grossi said the agency has been unable to conduct in-field verification activities in Iran for more than six months, while warning that its lack of information about Iranian nuclear material represents a “serious proliferation concern.”