IAEA chief says Assad-era reactor was built for weapons

A secret nuclear reactor built under the rule of ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was nearly complete and configured to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, the head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog said on Monday.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi made the announcement at the opening of the agency's quarterly board of governors meeting in Vienna, calling the reactor a "very serious proliferation concern." The investigation, which the IAEA has described as a "historic breakthrough," uncovered roughly 73 metric tons of natural uranium metal, mostly in the form of reactor fuel, along with a fuel fabrication plant and a nuclear waste storage site — none of which had been declared to the agency.apnews+2

A Clandestine Program Revealed

"They didn't want the world to know what they were doing," Grossi told reporters, adding that the reactor at the Deir al-Zor site in eastern Syria "was almost completed" before Israeli jets destroyed it in a 2007 airstrike. Israel publicly admitted to the strike only in 2018.al-monitor

"Given the configuration, the technical features of that type of reactor, this is a reactor that is very efficient in the production of fissile material that could be used directly for the fabrication of nuclear weapons," Grossi said, while cautioning that the former authorities' intentions "cannot be judged."reuters+1

IAEA inspectors visited the Deir al-Zor site and a second undisclosed location last month after Syria's current government, which came to power following Assad's ouster in December 2024, voluntarily disclosed the sites. Grossi said it was "very possible" that the former Syrian authorities carried out explosions at the site to hinder any future investigation.al-monitor

Lingering Questions on North Korea

The IAEA first declared in 2011 that the Deir al-Zor location "very likely" housed a nuclear reactor and that its information suggested it had been built with North Korean assistance. Grossi said on Monday he had not been tasked by the board to further investigate alleged North Korean connections.al-monitor

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonproliferation research organization, said last week that while the IAEA's findings provided "confirmation and new details," they "do not provide any surprises or fill in the missing information about the entire scope of the reactor and reprocessing project and Syria's cooperation with North Korea."al-monitor

Toward Closing the File

A draft resolution expected to be submitted to the IAEA's 35-nation board this week proposes closing the safeguards file opened in 2011. Grossi praised Damascus's "courageous decision" to cooperate and said the agency would continue working with Syria to keep the recovered nuclear material safe.reuters+1