VIENNA, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Syria has offered to cooperate
with a U.N. nuclear watchdog probe into a suspected reactor site
after years of stonewalling, and a meeting may take place in
October, the Vienna-based agency's head said on Monday.
U.S. intelligence reports have said the Dair Alzour complex
was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor intended to produce
plutonium for atomic weaponry, before Israeli warplanes reduced
it to rubble in 2007.
Syria has said it was a non-nuclear military facility.
In June, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency board
of governors voted to report Syria to the Security Council,
rebuking it for failing to cooperate with the agency probe.
Addressing the board on Monday, IAEA Director General
Yukiya Amano said Syria in a letter last month had "stated its
readiness to have a meeting with agency safeguards staff in
Damascus in October."
The purpose of the talks would be to "agree on an action
plan to resolve the outstanding issues" regarding the Dair
Alzour site, Amano cited the Syrian letter as saying.
He said the IAEA had proposed that the meeting take place on
Oct 10-11 "with the aim of advancing the agency's verification
mission in Syria."
(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl)
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