U.N. nuclear body may step up pressure on Syria

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. atomic watchdog does not rule out using its "special inspections" powers if Syria refuses to allow its experts access to a desert site where secret nuclear activity may have taken place, its head said on Tuesday.

The comments by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), underlined growing frustration at Damascus' continued stonewalling of the United Nations body's investigation into the issue.

"On the Dair Alzour site, we haven't had progress after I became director general (in late 2009)," Amano told Reuters in an interview. "We cannot wait for ever, of course ... already lots of time has passed."

For more than two years Syria has blocked IAEA follow-up access to the desert site that U.S. intelligence reports say was a nascent North Korean-designed nuclear reactor, intended to produce bomb fuel.

The site, known as either al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, was bombed to rubble by Israel in 2007. Syria, an ally of Iran, denies ever having an atom bomb program.

Amano said he had not yet received a response to a letter he wrote to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on November 18, the first time the IAEA chief has appealed to Syrian authorities directly, rather than just through his regular reports.

In the letter, he asked the government to provide prompt IAEA access to relevant information and locations related to Dair Alzour and to cooperate with the agency in general.

The United States has suggested that the IAEA may need to consider invoking its "special inspection" mechanism to give it authority to look anywhere necessary in Syria at short notice.

SYRIAN DEFIANCE

Asked if he could consider this in the case of Syria, Amano said it was one of the tools at the agency's disposal.

"It is not ruled out. It is not decided to call for a special inspection either."

The agency last resorted to special inspection powers in 1993 in North Korea, which still withheld access and later developed a nuclear bomb capacity in secret.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the IAEA may soon issue a critical report on Syria's nuclear program if it did not cooperate with the agency's investigation.

"Nothing has been decided. There are various ways to address this issue," Amano said.

Last year, the IAEA gave some weight to suspicions of illicit atomic activity at the site by saying that uranium traces found in a 2008 visit by inspectors pointed to nuclear-related activity.

The agency wants to re-examine the site so it can take samples from rubble removed immediately after the air strike.

Syria has dismissed calls to grant U.N. nuclear inspectors prompt access to Dair Alzour, saying they should focus their investigation on Israel instead. Damascus has suggested the uranium traces came with Israeli munitions used in the attack.

In a further sign of defiance, President Bashar al-Assad said in a Wall Street Journal interview this week that Syria would not grant IAEA inspectors unrestricted access to possible nuclear sites because it would amount to a violation of sovereignty.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)