UN watchdog excavates suspected Syrian nuclear site as Damascus pledges safeguards

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Inspectors with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog have begun excavating at a site believed to be linked to a clandestine nuclear program run by Syria’s former government, the agency’s chief said on Thursday.

The announcement came as Syria’s new government has pledged to cooperate with the watchdog. Syria’s top diplomat said Thursday that Damascus remains interested in developing a peaceful nuclear program and intends to keep any nuclear material in its custody under international safeguards.

Under former President Bashar Assad, Syria was believed to have operated an extensive undeclared nuclear program that included a nuclear reactor built by North Korea in eastern Deir el-Zour province.

Syria under Assad allowed IAEA inspectors to visit some sites, but the country under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has pledged full cooperation with the UN watchdog and given its inspectors access to suspected nuclear sites.

“Myself and my team, we were inside the site of Deir el-Zour, where very comprehensive work of excavation and exploration is taking place now,” the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi said at a news conference in Damascus.

Grossi said another site with nuclear material has also been discovered, but did not disclose any details.

Grossi said Syria’s cooperation has “enormous importance.”

“We’re talking about a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use and Syria has decided to open up this site to the inspectors of the IAEA,” Grossi said. “This material will be accounted for and will be put within the international safeguard system.”

Syria under its new leadership has expressed an intention to develop nuclear energy.

“Syria confirms, based on technical evaluations, that this material does not pose any danger,” Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani said. “It will remain in Syria’s custody and will remain subject to the agency’s safeguard system.”

The site in Deir el-Zour only became public knowledge after Israel launched airstrikes in 2007 that destroyed the facility. Syria later leveled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions about it.

However, in 2024, before Assad was deposed in December of that year, IAEA inspectors took samples at three locations and in 2025 said they had found traces of uranium at one site.

Israel is believed to be the Middle East’s only state with nuclear weapons, although it has not declared its own program.

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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press producer Malak Harb in Beirut contributed to this report.