IAEA confirms Assad-era undeclared reactor work and 73 tonnes of uranium in Syria

The Deir ez-Zor reactor was widely believed to have been built with North Korean assistance.

Israel destroyed the Deir ez-Zor facility in a 2007 airstrike.

Syria later leveled or razed the site.

Syria did not fully answer the IAEA’s questions about the site.

Syria was required to declare the reactor under its NPT safeguards agreement.

The Deir ez-Zor site has been shut for 18 years.

The IAEA took samples at the site in 2024 and later reported they contained uranium particles.

Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December 2024.

Syria’s new government agreed to give IAEA inspectors access to suspected former nuclear sites.

Syria’s new authorities notified the IAEA of a previously undeclared site in a July letter.

Damascus invited IAEA inspectors to verify the undeclared site and any nuclear material found there.

Grossi said in Damascus last month that inspectors had found several tons of nuclear material at a site Syria reported in July.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi visited the Deir ez-Zor site last month.

IAEA inspectors visited sites in Syria in August and carried out verification work.

Inspectors visited the Deir ez-Zor site and a second location related to nuclear material identified by Syria.

A confidential IAEA report was circulated to member states and seen by news agencies around September 1, 2026.

The IAEA says cooling infrastructure uncovered at Deir ez-Zor is consistent with a nuclear reactor.

The IAEA says former Syrian authorities failed to report nuclear material, facilities and activities.

The undeclared work included a nuclear reactor under construction at Deir ez-Zor.

The IAEA listed a fuel fabrication plant where fuel for the reactor was manufactured.

A related location stored nuclear fuel as well as uranium scrap and waste.

Related sites were used for storage and planned reprocessing activities.

The IAEA said it would continue to monitor the Deir ez-Zor site as excavation work progresses.

Inspectors verified around 73 tonnes of natural uranium metal at a previously undeclared site.

About 55 tonnes of that uranium was in fuel rods, with the rest scrap and waste.

The new site contained natural uranium metal in the form of fuel rods with cladding.

The nuclear material is under IAEA containment and surveillance measures.

No nuclear material or equipment was found at two other locations the agency visited on August 19.

The IAEA was still awaiting results from environmental samples taken at those other locations.

Grossi welcomed Syria’s transparency and cooperation with the agency.

Syria provided the IAEA with required nuclear material accounting reports and design information for the facilities.

Grossi praised Damascus’s decision to report the previously undisclosed site.

Syria’s new authorities have said they want to pursue civilian nuclear energy under international oversight.

Syria was believed to have operated an extensive undeclared nuclear programme under Assad.