Chief U.N. monitor hopes for clarity on Syria site soon

By Mark John

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday he hoped to be able to shed light in the next few weeks on whether a Syrian facility bombed by Israel last year was an undeclared atomic reactor.

The United States released intelligence last month that it said showed Syria built a reactor with North Korean help before Israeli warplanes destroyed it last September. Damascus has denied the accusations.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the IAEA was in contact with Syria to verify the U.S. intelligence and recalled Damascus's obligation to report any nuclear activities to the agency.

"I hope that in the next few weeks we will be able to shed some light on the nature of the facility that was destroyed," he told reporters after talks with EU officials in Brussels.

"Syria has an obligation to notify the agency if they are, if they were, building any nuclear reactors," he said.

Damascus has not granted IAEA inspectors access to the area despite several requests since the air strike, diplomats say.

But Syria's U.N. envoy said two weeks ago it would cooperate with the IAEA investigation and had "nothing to hide".

The U.S. material included photos and other information the CIA said showed the facility's potential for yielding plutonium for nuclear weapons. But there were no indications of any fuel source or reprocessing plant crucial to producing plutonium.