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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has determined that the government of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was constructing a nuclear reactor in the eastern province of Deir ez-Zor, according to a confidential report obtained by the Associated Press and circulated to member states.
The report says IAEA inspectors carried out verification work at multiple sites across Syria in August, concluding that the former Assad government had failed to declare nuclear material, facilities and activities as required under its safeguards agreement with the agency, part of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Among the undeclared assets identified in the report were the reactor under construction in Deir ez-Zor, a facility for producing nuclear fuel, and a separate site used to store fuel.
Inspectors visited the Deir ez-Zor site on August 29 to monitor progress on excavation work there, the report says, and confirmed that cooling infrastructure uncovered at the location was consistent with a nuclear reactor structure.
The report identifies three additional areas with what it calls a "functional link" to the Deir ez-Zor reactor. One is tied to uranium conversion or nuclear fuel fabrication activities, while another was used for the temporary storage of construction materials.
A third area, the report says, was used both for temporarily storing construction materials moved to or from the Deir ez-Zor site and for planned reprocessing activities.
A delegation led by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, accompanied by senior inspectors, also examined a separate site that Syria had not previously declared to the agency, according to the report.
Syrian authorities notified the IAEA of this site's existence in a letter sent on July 17, inviting the agency to inspect and verify any nuclear material that might be found there, the report states.
Inspectors found natural uranium metal in the form of clad fuel rods at the site. The IAEA verified roughly 73 tons of the material and placed all of it under containment and surveillance measures, according to the report.
Speaking in Damascus on August 18, Grossi said Syria held "several tons" of nuclear material left over from the period of Bashar al-Assad's government, and that the Deir ez-Zor site had since been opened to the agency's inspectors.
The IAEA is the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, tasked with verifying that countries honor commitments made under the NPT not to develop nuclear weapons.
Syria has been a party to the treaty since 1969, and the IAEA has for more than a decade pressed Damascus over suspicions tied to a site at Deir ez-Zor known as Al-Kibar, which Israel bombed in 2007 and which Western intelligence agencies assessed to have been a covert nuclear reactor.
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