Bashar al-Assad

UN watchdog says Syria ‘failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities’ under Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Syria tried to construct a nuclear reactor in the eastern province of Deir Az Zor under ousted former President Bashar al-Assad.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a confidential report seen by news agencies on Tuesday, said it visited several sites in Syria in August and carried out verification work.

Based on observations at the Deir Az Zor site, the agency said it confirms “that the cooling infrastructure which has now been uncovered is consistent with that of a nuclear reactor”. The agency said it would continue to monitor the activities at the site “as the excavation work progresses”.

Syria was believed to have operated an extensive undeclared nuclear programme under al-Assad that included a nuclear reactor built by North Korea in Deir Az Zor.

The site only became public knowledge after Israel launched air strikes in 2007 that destroyed the facility. Syria later levelled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions about it.

Israel is believed to have its own undeclared atomic weapons programme that makes it the only country in the Middle East with nuclear bombs. Israel neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons.

Following al-Assad’s removal in early December 2024, the new government agreed to give IAEA inspectors access to suspected former nuclear sites.

The agency took samples at the site in 2024 and reported last year that they contained uranium particles.

In its Tuesday report, the IAEA said it was also able to “establish that the former Syrian authorities had failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities”.

Besides the nuclear reactor under construction at Deir Az Zor, the IAEA listed a fuel fabrication plant, where the nuclear fuel for the reactor was manufactured, and a location where the nuclear fuel, as well as uranium scrap and waste, were stored.

During the visit to Syria, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and a team of senior inspectors also visited a previously undeclared site.

The new Syrian administration notified the agency of the site’s existence in a July 17 letter and invited the IAEA “to cooperate with the Syrian authorities in the inspection and verification of the site and of any nuclear material to be potentially found”.

The IAEA said in its report that this new site contained “natural uranium metal in the form of fuel rods with cladding”.

The agency verified the material and confirmed “the presence of around 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal”. The agency reported that “all of this nuclear material is currently subject to Agency containment and surveillance measures”.

The new Syrian authorities have also expressed an interest in developing a civilian nuclear energy programme and said any nuclear material found in the country would remain in Syria’s custody under international safeguards.

Aug. 24 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department officially delisted Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday, marking a significant step toward the country’s reintegration into the global economy and the international community.

The announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio comes about a month and a half after President Donald Trump informed Congress of his intent to lift Syria’s decades-old terrorism designation that barred it from most U.S. foreign assistance and clamped down on what could be exported to it. It also meant the United States would oppose foreign institutions, such as the World Bank, granting it loans.

Along with the delisting of Syria, Rubio said he also removed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist groups that led the military campaign that toppled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in late 2024, from its list of specially designated global terrorists.

“These actions were all taken in recognition of the positive actions taken and further commitments by the Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa to fully distance Syria from acts of international terrorism,” Rubio said in a statement, listing as reasons Damascus’ joining the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State and conducting terrorism-disrupting operations targeting ISIS and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Rubio said removing the designations “eliminates the final major barrier for private sector investment in Syria and promotes economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy.”

Al-Sharaa issued a statement congratulating the Syrian people on their country’s removal from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list.

“Today, Syria is casting off a black mark from its shoulders, and with its own hands, tearing out a page from its painful past, so that it may set out toward development, reconstruction and building,” he said in a recorded statement.

“Great people of Syria, you have done it again. The sanctions have been lifted from you and the restrictions have been removed. I ask almighty God to help us serve you.”

Syria was among the first countries designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979 over its hostility to Israel, fighting with Lebanon, partnership with Iran, alignment with Russia, support for terrorist groups and development of weapons of mass destruction, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

Since the fall of al-Assad in late 2024, Syria’s relations with the United States — and much of the Western world — have steadily improved. In June, Trump signed an executive order ending most U.S. sanctions on Damascus and informed Congress in July of his intent to delist it as a state sponsor of terrorism, starting the 45-day congressional notification clock before it could be formally removed.

“Lifting Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism is a historic step that returns it to its natural place within the global economic system,” Safwat Raslan, the governor of the Central Bank of Syria, said in a statement Monday.

“And we at the Central Bank of Syria are working to build a modern and reliable financial system, capable of keeping pace with and benefiting from all opportunities. And what is to come is better, God willing.”