Article by Robert E. Kelley
The fall of the Assad regime has raised the curtains on its bitter legacy in Syria. Will claims about its nuclear weapons ambitions, and by association allegations North Korea is operating a new nuclear black market, be cleared up? Nuclear engineer Bob Kelley, a regular AR contributor, examines the issue.
VIENNA | 13 December 2024 (IDN*) — On the night of 6 September 2007 Israeli jets bombed a building in Northen Syria. The building was alleged to be a nuclear reactor under construction to support a nuclear weapons program. The reactor was reported to be a copy of the small plutonium production reactor in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).
There are many allegations in this strange story, but the most important is that the government of DPRK, headed Kim Jong Un was selling nuclear technology. The reactor would have produced weapons grade plutonium (WGPu) for an Iranian bomb. It is likely that the final customer, Iran, paid cash for the design of the reactor, construction assistance and possibly nuclear fuel.
There are many loose ends in this story. How materials were to be transported. Associations between DPRK, Iran and Syria. Why Iran would have chosen a North Korean reactor in Syria to make plutonium when Iran had a uranium-focused program. The absence of support facilities. But if there is any truth to this story, confirmed by the US CIA,[1] the Israeli Government and many independent sources, DPRK was exporting bomb-related materials for cash.[2] After exploding its own first nuclear bomb in 2006.
Similarity to A Q Khan of Pakistan
This event is very important because it connects directly to events in 2003 in DPRK. It is also a sharp reminder of the nuclear proliferation network of A Q Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist. Khan acquired critical gas centrifuge enrichment technology, by espionage, in the early 1970’s. He used that technology to assist Pakistan in producing enough highly enriched uranium to build a significant stockpile of uranium-based nuclear weapons.
Once Pakistan had mastered enrichment technology, and satisfied its own weapons material needs, Khan turned to exporting the knowledge he had acquired. He offered nuclear weapon design information to Iraq in 1990. Using reverse espionage, he offered and then supplied gas centrifuge knowledge to Iran that is the basis of Iran’s very large uranium program. He supplied actual centrifuges to Libya in 2004.
Very importantly, Khan began…
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* Re-published by Atomic Reporters under Creative Commons license. Image released by the CIA-footage courtesy of US Government video – Photo: 2024
Bob Kelley is a nuclear engineer with extensive experience in nuclear weapons programs and non-proliferation efforts. He spent over 35 years working in various capacities, primarily with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), before moving into international roles.