Syrian Foreign Ministry Summons US Ambassador in Damascus to Protest US Objections to Syrian/Russian Nuclear Cooperation

October 14, 2002

The Syrian foreign ministry on Sunday morning summoned the US ambassador in Damascus and gave him an official protest on what was promoted by spokesmen by the US Department of State on the Syrian- Russian cooperation in the field of nuclear researches.

The Syrian foreign ministry asked also for an official explanations for the reasons behind that at the time the US knows that Syria had joined to the NPT in 1969, and to the international guarantees agreement in 1994, and that its received delegations from the International agency for atomic energy, whose all reports stress that the Syrian nuclear program is dedicated for peaceful purposes. Syria, besides, and since 1987 has been calling for making the Middle East a zone free from all nuclear weapons, foremost being the nuclear weapons and under the supervision of the UN.

The Syrian foreign ministry also expressed its great regret over the standing cooperation between Israel and the USA in various areas of armament, and the US silence over the Israeli nuclear weapons especially as Israel refuses to put its nuclear institutions under the supervision of the International Agency for Atomic Energy, noting that Israel is the only country on the region which owns nuclear weapons, according to several reports issued in the USA.