NEW YORK: In a major turnaround, Syria is pledging full cooperation with UN attempts to probe strong evidence that it secretly built a reactor that could have been used to make nuclear arms, according to a confidential document shared with the AP Sunday. If Syria fulfills its promise, the move would end three years of stonewalling by Damascus of the International Atomic Energy. Since 2008, the agency has tried in vain to follow up on strong evidence that a target bombed in 2007 by Israeli warplanes was a nearly built nuclear reactor that would have produced plutonium once active. Syria's sudden readiness to cooperate seems to be an attempt at derailing US-led attempts to have Damascus referred to the UN Security Council amid already strong international pressure on the Syrian leadership to end its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. An IAEA report last week said the Vienna-based agency “assesses that the building destroyed ... was a nuclear reactor” - the finding sought by Washington and its allies to push to have Syria reported to the council by a 35-nation IAEA board meeting next month. That, in turn, apparently triggered Syria's decision to compromise. In confidential note sent Friday to board members, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano cites top Syrian nuclear agency officials as saying, “We are ready to fully cooperate with the agency” on its probe of the suspect site. Amano said the pledge was contained in a letter dated Thursday - two days after his agency delivered its assessment. But Washington is continuing its push. It has put forward a restricted draft of a resolution to be voted on at the 35-nation IAEA board meeting beginning June 6 that – if passed – would report Syria to the UN Security Council for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
