Syria Reports Progress on Nuclear Materials

Syria will welcome a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the coming days. The Syrian Atomic Energy Commission has announced that it will report “significant progress” in resolving the issue of nuclear materials, but has not yet provided further details.

Following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in late 2024, Syria’s new leadership pledged to cooperate with the UN nuclear agency in clarifying the country’s past nuclear activities. Syria is not known to possess any operational stockpiles of nuclear material intended for a weapons program.

Attention has long been focused primarily on a site in Deir ez-Zor province, where Israel bombed a facility suspected of being a nuclear reactor in 2007. Last year, the IAEA announced that during its investigation, it had found traces of uranium at one of three sites allegedly linked to that location.

Meanwhile, Axios, citing Israeli and US officials, reported that the IAEA could soon remove nuclear material stored at a secret location in Syria. Damascus, however, has not confirmed such an agreement.

A Syrian official told Reuters that negotiations with the IAEA are still ongoing and that a final agreement has not yet been reached. He also denied any Israeli role in the process.

(Reuters, mja)