IAEA to probe Syria atomic plant report

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog pledged on Friday to investigate whether Syria secretly built an atomic reactor with North Korean help but criticized the United States for delaying intelligence information.

The United States revealed its intelligence material on Thursday about the suspected Syrian atomic plant, saying it was "nearing operational capability" a month before Israeli warplanes bombed it on September 6.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, lambasted Israel for the air strike, saying his inspectors should have been able to verify beforehand whether undeclared nuclear activity had been going on.

ElBaradei said the U.S. allegations against Syria, which denied the U.S. accusations and accused Washington of involvement in the Israeli air attack, would be investigated with due vigor.

"The Agency will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information," he said in a statement.

ElBaradei, alluding to the United States, criticized a failure to share intelligence information "in a timely manner" about the project, which Washington said was launched in 2001.

He confirmed the United States had handed over information this week saying a Syrian installation destroyed by an Israeli air strike in September was an unfinished atomic reactor.

"According to this information," ElBaradei said, "the reactor was not yet operational and no nuclear material had been introduced into it."

Thursday's U.S. disclosure did not amount to proof of an illicit nuclear arms program since there was no sign of a reprocessing plant needed to convert spent fuel from the plant into bomb-grade uranium, analysts said.

"The United States and Israel have not identified any plutonium-separation or nuclear weaponisation facilities," David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security said in an email commentary.

"The absence of such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor was part of an active nuclear weapons program," they said. "The United States does not have any indication of how Syria would fuel this reactor..., which raises questions about when this reactor could have operated."

SYRIA MAKES COMPARISON WITH IRAQ

Syria likens the U.S. allegations to those made against Iraq about weapons of mass destruction that were never found. It accused the United States of colluding in Israel's air strike.

"The U.S. administration was apparently party to the execution" of the air raid, a Syrian government statement said, without giving details. A U.S. official said Washington did not give Israel any "green light" to strike the area.

Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal which experts estimate at up to 200 warheads. The Jewish state has never declared its nuclear firepower as part of a "strategic ambiguity" policy to deter adversaries.

ElBaradei said Syria would have been obliged under its non-proliferation safeguards agreement with the Vienna-based IAEA to inform its inspectors in advance of any planning and construction of a nuclear facility.

"It is essential that Syria shed full light on its nuclear activities, past and present, in accordance with its international obligations," French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told reporters in Paris.

"The clandestine construction of a nuclear reactor would be a major breach of Syria's non-proliferation obligations."

ElBaradei bemoaned Washington's failure to turn the information over to the IAEA on the alleged reactor, said to have been launched in 2001, much earlier to help "enable us to verify its veracity and establish the facts."

"In light of the above, (I) view the unilateral use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the non-proliferation regime," he added.

Syria has belonged to the 144-nation IAEA since 1963 and has one, declared small research reactor subject to U.N. inspection.

Diplomats close to the IAEA said Syria refused requests for agency inspectors to visit the alleged reactor site after the air raid. Syria subsequently razed and buried the installation and removed "incriminating equipment," Washington said.

The IAEA has been investigating the disputed uranium enrichment program of Iran, Syria's close ally, since 2003. Iran is under U.N. sanctions for failing to prove the work is only for electricity, not atom bombs, and refusing to halt it.

The White House said it was convinced that North Korea had helped Syria to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor.

Under a deal North Korea struck with five regional powers, it had until the end of 2007 to disclose a complete list of its fissile material and nuclear weaponry as well as answer U.S. suspicions of enriching uranium and proliferating technology.

North Korea tested a nuclear device in October 2006.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus, Estelle Shirbon in Paris and Jack Kim in Seoul; Editing by Charles Dick)