The head of the UN atomic watchdog has hit out at the US for withholding intelligence that Syria had been building a secret nuclear reactor with North Korea’s help.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also criticised Israel for acting on the allegations and bombing the purported reactor in a raid last September without giving IAEA inspectors an opportunity to investigate.
IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei “deplores the fact that this information was not provided to the agency, in accordance with the agency’s responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), prior to the use of force by Israel,” the agency said in a statement on Friday. “Under the NPT, the agency has a responsibility to verify any proliferation allegations in a non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT and to report its findings to the IAEA Board of Governors and the Security Council, ” it said.