The International Atomic Energy Agency’s probe into Syria’s potential nuclear weapons activities paused when rebels took control of the Syrian capital and forced its former dictator to flee.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a presentation in Oslo, Norway Wednesday that Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad gave the nuclear watchdog permission to collect samples from suspected sites in recent months. With Assad recently ousted by rebel groups and currently in exile in Russia, IAEA inspectors are “facing new delays and uncertainty,” Bloomberg said.
“We are still assessing what we found there and we have a big question mark in front of us because we don’t have an interlocutor,” Grossi said in his presentation.
When Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, IAEA began investigating it after Western intelligence agencies said North Korean engineers helped build it and that its plutonium could be used for a nuclear weapon, Bloomberg said. Syria said the facility was non-nuclear, despite IAEA finding uranium particles at the site.
