Syria tells IAEA it will comply with reactor probe

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - Syria told U.N. nuclear watchdog governors on Thursday it would cooperate with an investigation into U.S. intelligence alleging it secretly built an atomic reactor with North Korean help, diplomats said.

The United States and Europe called on Syria to give U.N. investigators free access to check whatever they wanted after Damascus signalled it would bar them from sites Washington believes could have been nuclear-related.

It was the first exchange on the Syrian nuclear issue by the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency ahead of the IAEA mission to Syria from June 22 to 24.

Damascus has denied any covert nuclear activity. Washington says the reactor, wrecked in an Israeli air raid last September, was designed to yield plutonium as fuel for atomic bombs.

Syria, a U.S. foe and an ally of Iran whose secretive uranium enrichment programme has been under scrutiny since 2003, has made no public comment on the IAEA mission but confirmed its acquiescence to the governors' meeting in Vienna.

Diplomats there quoted Ibrahim Othman, Syria's atomic energy agency head, as saying inspectors could check the remote al-Kibar site where Washington says the reactor was close to completion before it was attacked by Israel.

"He said Syria had displayed transparency by agreeing to let inspectors visit al-Kibar and had raised no obstacles," said a diplomat who was in the closed meeting.

"He said they would leave it up to agency experts to discover the truth, namely that the United States fabricated this evidence and such claims, if pressed, would endanger peace and security in the Middle East," the diplomat told Reuters.