IAEA to refer Syrian nuclear issue to UNSC
June 10th, 2011 - 1:20 am ICT by IANSVienna, June 9 (IANS) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Thursday asked Syria to fully cooperate over its outstanding nuclear issues and decided to report the issue to the UN Security Council (UNSC).
The 35-nation IAEA board voted on the US-backed plan, with 17 voting in its favour, six against, 11 abstentions and one absence, Xinhua reported.
The resolution focuses on a Syrian facility known as Dair Alzour. It was suspected by the West of being a covert nuclear site for military use. In 2007, it was reduced to rubbles by Israeli airplanes.
The resolution called on Syria to “remedy urgently” its non-compliance with global nuclear non-proliferation rules, allow IAEA inspectors to revisit the suspect site, and provide all related information to clarify the nature of its nuclear programme.
Syria has maintained that the Dair Alzour site was a non-nuclear military installation, and, due to this nature of the site, it has no obligation to provide more information to the IAEA under its safeguards agreed with the agency. It has not allowed IAEA to send inspectors to the site since 2008.
On Monday, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said that “the agency has come to the conclusion that it is very likely that the building destroyed at the Dair Alzour site was a nuclear reactor which should have been declared to the agency.”
In 2006, the US and its western alliance used a similar procedure to send the Iranian nuclear issue to the Security Council, resulting in sanctions against the country.
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