U.N. nuclear agency face dilemma over Syria

U.N. nuclear agency has been more than two years since Syria permissible the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the Dair Alzour desert site, where secret nuclear work may have taken place before it was bombed to debris by Israel in 2007. U.S. intelligence reports said it was a nascent North Korean intended nuclear reactor intended to produce bomb fuel. Syria, like its ally Iran, denies having an atomic weapons programme. Washington has optional the Vienna based U.N. agency could invoke its "special inspection" mechanism to give it the rights to look anywhere in Syria at short notice.

Damascus would doubtless refuse such a demand and IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano would then have to choose between raise the bet further or, in effect, accept his office can do little more to make an unwilling member state cooperate. Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace referred in a report to inspection and other means used by the agency to create sure countries do not acquire atom bombs. "Syria is winning its battle with the IAEA over safeguards compliance," he said. "Fearing a confrontation, Amano is not willing to demand from Damascus a special inspection to probe allegations raised by Western state and Israel that Syria built a clandestine reactor."

In Uranium traces hottest report on Syria in September, the IAEA said the country's refusal to allow U.N. inspectors access to the area was endangering potential proof in the investigation. Earlier this year, it give some weight to suspicions of illicit atomic motion by saying uranium traces found in a visit by inspectors in 2008 piercing to nuclear related activity. In a debate in the IAEA's 35-nation board final month, U.S. ambassador Glyn Davies said Washington would back the agency's use of all tools at its removal to advance the investigation. Syrian envoy Mohammed Badi Khattab said the IAEA did not require to go back to Dair Alzour because it already had ample proof it was a non-nuclear military site.

Inaction may set atom fuel bank funds at risk: U.S.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is mulling several plans under which states would be offer with low-enriched uranium (LEU) for their civilian nuclear programs if their supply is cut and they can show a perfect non-proliferation record. U.S. President Barack Obama has backed the decades old idea but some developing states have voiced misgivings that it may border their right to set up sovereign atomic energy programs. An IAEA plan support by former Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei proposes buying 60-80 tons of LEU using $150 million in member donations and offering it to states at market prices.

The U.S has contributed $50 million to the plan. "Taken together with pledges from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and other member states, $150 million has been promise for this purpose," U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told the IAEA annual general conference. "This offer has been extended some times and presents member states with an excellent opportunity to realize one of the founding objectives of the IAEA. These resources will be at risk if we do not achieve a decision soon."

Chu said countries should push for a resolution approving an execution plan at the next IAEA governing board meeting in December. "It is now time to move beyond general discussion and discuss of fuel bank principles," he said at the Vienna meeting. The fuel bank is seen by the U.N. nuclear agency as a way to meet demand from some 60 nations, several in the conflict-ridden Middle East, for technical help in launching atomic energy without spreading the risk of proliferation. Iran's disputed enrichment program, which the West fears is aimed at increasing atom bombs, has also helped the idea up the agenda as well after decades on the political back-burner.

Iran denies construction secret uranium enrichment site

Iran on Friday denied claims by opponent groups that it was secretly building a new uranium enrichment site deep in the mountains northwest of the capital. "We have no such fitting that enriches uranium and if they are aware of such a growth, they should tell us. We will thank them," the country's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi told the Mehr news agency. "No such nuclear installation with a specific definition exists in Iran which has not been confirmed to the agency," he said of UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iranian opponent group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said on Thursday in Washington that in 2005 Iran began construction a new uranium enrichment site in Abyek, about 120 kilometers northwest of Tehran.

Iran is now enriching uranium in the central city of Natanz and is building another such facility at Fordo, southwest of the capital. Salehi said that nuclear installations have exact purposes. "Facilities which are used for medical and agriculture purposes are not measured nuclear. There are many such facilities in Iran," he said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces in November that Iran will build 10 new uranium enrichment sites. His statement came after Iran was censured by the IAEA for building the second enrichment facility at Fordo, southwest of the capital. Last month, Salehi said that construction of one of the 10 new nuclear services would begin by the nd of the current Iranian year in March 2011, or shortly thereafter.

The United States and other Western powers think Iran is using its uranium enrichment programme to build an atom bomb. Iran denies the charge, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful reason. The Pentagon and the independent Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), meanwhile, spoken skepticism over the newest opposition claims. "I don't know if this site is one that they have discovered that our intelligence expert has not seen. I find that hard to consider, but we shall see," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. David Albright, the founder of ISIS, said "it's just another one of their results you can't verify. It doesn't hold up very well in our minds. There's nothing in the satellite images that advise a centrifuge plant." He told AFP the NCRI have made "a lot of mistakes" with past claims about Iranian nuclear action and they also "exaggerate their accomplishments dramatically."