North Korea ‘helped’ Syria build N-plant

North Korea ‘helped’ Syria build N-plant

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: April 24 2008 15:36 | Last updated: April 24 2008 15:36

Satellite images show a suspected nuclear facility site in Syria

North Korea helped Syria construct a nuclear reactor that was “within weeks of completion” when Israel destroyed the facility in September, the Bush administration said on Thursday.

The White House said Syria had been building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean help, and called on Damascus to “come clean before the world regarding its illicit nuclear activities”.

Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the US, called the charges “fantasy”, saying the Bush administration had a “record about fabricating stories about other countries’ WMDs [weapons of mass destruction]”.

The White House has maintained a shroud of secrecy since Israel struck the facility, which Syria codenamed “al-Kibar”, last September. The Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday briefed Congress on the mysterious incident.

Speaking before the CIA briefed Congress, a senior US official told the Financial Times that North Korea and Syria started discussing the project in 1997, and that construction of the facility began in 2003. He said the intelligence provided an “eye-popping, comprehensive briefing that will demonstrate how close Syria came to having a nuclear weapons capability”.

The CIA briefing contains a video that brings together a compilation of still images, including satellite imagery, ground imagery, and photographs taken inside the facility.

One photograph shows a North Korean nuclear scientist Chon Chibu standing beside his Syrian counterpart. Mr Chon, who worked at North Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium reactor, has previously dealt with US officials. While the date of the photography was unclear, the official said a car in the background suggested it was sometime after mid-2005. The US believes North Korea provided designs for the Syrian reactor, which was a “dead ringer” for Yongbyon. The official said Washington was unsure whether any North Koreans were killed in the Israeli air strike.

While US and Israeli intelligence suggests Syria was close to completing the physical reactor, they have no evidence that Syria had obtained plutonium to feed into the reactor. “The US does not have any indication of how Syria would fuel this reactor, and no information that North Korea had already, or intended, to provide the reactor’s fuel,” said David Albright, a nuclear expert at the The Institute for Science and International Security.

The US official said that while there was no evidence that Syria had obtained fuel, the facility had “all the earmarkings of a reactor that was going to be used to produce fissile material”.

The allegations come at a highly sensitive time for the six-party talks. The US recently reached a tentative agreement under which North Korea would “acknowledge”, but not admit to, US concerns about the alleged proliferation involving Syria.