Syria has agreed to a limited plan to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate a part of the country's alleged nuclear programme, the IAEA said Monday in a report.
However, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano made clear in the document that his Vienna-based organization is not satisfied with the explanations that Syria has provided so far on an alleged secret reactor and on undeclared nuclear experiments, dpa reported.
Last Friday, officials from Syria and the IAEA agreed on a plan to resolve the issue of uranium particles, which inspectors of the nuclear agency have found at a research facility near Damascus.
The plan came four weeks after the US envoy to the IAEA, Glyn Davies, raised the possibility that agency member countries might soon push for so-called special inspections in Syria, a rarely invoked measure that would grant inspectors broader powers.
The IAEA's analysis of the uranium traces have led to "inconsistencies and questions," when compared with Syrian accounts of how this material could be related to certain past experiments, Amano wrote.
The work plan does not extend to the mystery of the al-Kibar site, which Israel bombed in 2007 on suspicion that it was a reactor being constructed with North Korean help. The site is also known as Dair Alzour.
Syria claims it was a non-nuclear military installation and has not granted further inspections or provided technical information about the site.
"With the passage of time, some of the necessary information concerning the Dair Alzour site is further deteriorating or has been lost entirely," Amano wrote, urging Syria to cooperate.
Samples taken at the site have revealed traces of man-made uranium. The IAEA has assessed that several features of the location and other evidence point to a reactor.
Syria agrees to limited work plan for IAEA nuclear probe
