IAEA begins mission to probe Syria nuclear programme

Still, IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen spoke optimistically of the mission’s chances before boarding the flight to Damascus on Sunday, saying he and his two-man mission hoped to start to “establish the facts this evening.”

Despite the low-key nature of the visit, the stakes are immense. Damascus denies working on a secret nuclear program. But Washington hopes the UN agency team will find evidence backing US intelligence that a structure destroyed by Israeli war planes in September was a nearly completed plutonium-producing reactor.

If so, the trip could mark the start of massive atomic agency investigation similar to the five-year inquiry into Iran’s activities. What’s more, the investigation could draw in countries such as North Korea, which Washington says helped Damascus and Iran. Media reports also have linked Iran with Syria’s nuclear efforts.

After months delay, Syria agreed to allow the nuclear inspectors visit the bombed Al Kibar, but not three other locations suspected of harboring secret nuclear activities.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said earlier this month that visits to sites other than Al Kibar were “not within the purview of the agreement” with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The agency has little formal inspection rights in Syria, which has declared only a rudimentary nuclear programme using a small 27-kilowatt reactor for research and the production of isotopes for medical and agricultural uses.

Before the trip, both IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and the United States urged Syria to show transparency. “Syria was caught withholding information from the IAEA,” Gregory L. Schulte, the chief US delegate to the IAEA, said.