Syria opens Assad-era nuclear programme to UN probe

UN watchdog reports that it found large amounts of material at undisclosed sites in Syria.

Syria has opened the way for the United Nations to probe the remains of a nuclear programme operated by ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

Syria’s government said on Tuesday that it was working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the UN watchdog reported it had found several tonnes of nuclear material at a site in Damascus.

Syria had reported the site to the IAEA last month. The material found was not dangerous and will remain in Syrian custody, subject to guarantees, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said.

Since the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024, Syria’s authorities have committed to working with the IAEA to address the legacy of nuclear activities carried out during the decades of Assad family rule.

The IAEA inspectors visited two sites, one in Deir ez-Zur and “a second location related to the nuclear material identified by Syria recently”, according to a joint statement.

Speaking at a news conference in Damascus, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi praised the government’s “courageous decision” to report the undisclosed site.

“We are talking about a few tonnes of nuclear material that could be put to bad use,” he said, promising that it would be placed under international safeguards.

Foreign Minister al-Shaibani said: “On July 17, we sent an official letter to the agency, in which we declared of our own free will the presence of nuclear materials at an undeclared site within the legacy left by the former regime.”

Syria is not known to hold operational stockpiles of nuclear material for a weapons programme, but Israel bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 in Deir ez-Zur.