Syria: US claims of N.Korea nuclear help "fantasy"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Syria's ambassador to the United States on Thursday dismissed as "a fantasy" U.S. accusations that North Korea had helped his country build a secret nuclear reactor.

"This is a fantasy and this administration has a proven record about fabricating stories about other countries' WMDs," Ambassador Imad Moustapha said in an interview on CNN, referring to weapons of mass destruction.

"I hope the truth will be revealed to everybody," Moustapha said. "This will be a major embarrassment to the U.S. administration for a second time -- they lied about Iraqi WMDs and they think they can do it again."

The United States laid out intelligence on Thursday it says shows North Korea helped Syria build a suspected nuclear reactor that was destroyed by Israel last year.

Moustapha said the building that the Washington alleges was a secret nuclear reactor was just an "ordinary military building" that was empty.

Moustapha said he had been called in by the U.S. State Department and told "a ridiculous story about an alleged Syrian nuclear project and they told me they had compelling evidence that Syria was planning to acquire nuclear technology."

He said the "secret building" was easily seen on commercial satellite pictures and it did not have any barbed wire or heightened security around it.

"I hope the American citizens and the representatives of the American people would not be as gullible this time as they were prior to the war on Iraq and they will stop believing the silly accusations of the U.S. administration," he said.

(Reporting by Deborah Charles, Editing by Frances Kerry)