U.S., EU fear Syria 'sanitised' alleged nuclear sites

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States and the European Union said on Friday they were disturbed by apparent Syrian efforts to "sanitise" sites U.N. inspectors want to examine in a probe into alleged covert nuclear activity.

Washington accused Damascus of adopting Iranian tactics to impede a nuclear watchdog investigation into what U.S. officials say was a secret atomic reactor that could have made plutonium for atom bombs if Israel had not bombed the site last year.

A Nov. 19 International Atomic Energy Agency report said satellite imagery of the site revealed a layout resembling that of a reactor. Traces of uranium, or nuclear fuel, were found by inspectors allowed to scour the Al-Kibar site in June.

The IAEA's director urged Syria on Thursday to heed multiple agency requests for a return trip to Al-Kibar and to three military sites, as well as documentation about their uses, to help inspectors draw conclusions about what they were.

U.S. and EU envoys told a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors that Syria needed to clarify why Syria had landscaped all four sites and removed objects after inspectors asked to see them, as revealed by satellite pictures.

U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte said the pictures, which inspectors screened last week for governors, offered "dramatic evidence that Syria took immediate steps to sanitise" the locations in question.

Syria has dismissed the intelligence as fabrications and ruled out more inspection visits on national security grounds.

"So far Syria seems to be testing the tactics of hindrance and unhelpfulness that Iran has so finely honed," U.S. Ambassador Gregory Schulte told the closed-door gathering.