시리아가 최근 이스라일의 공습을 받은 핵의혹 시설의 잔해를 완전히 철거한 것으로 전해졌습니다. 북한과의 핵협력 의혹이 확산되고 있는 시점에 관련 증거를 은폐하려는 게 아니냐는 지적이 일고 있습니다.

방송듣기
오디오 자료 전송받기
워싱턴 포스트지는 가장 최근인 지난 24일 찍은 위성사진을 인용해 시리아의 핵의혹 시설이 마지막 벽돌 하나까지 철거됐음을 보여주고 있다고 전했습니다. 포스트지는 이번 사진을 검토한 핵과학자들의 말을 인용해 시리아가 이스라엘 공군기의 폭격으로 파괴된 문제의 핵시설을 은폐하기 위해 급히 서두른 것이 분명하다고 26일 풀이했습니다.

시리아가 이처럼 신속히 잔해철거를 완료한 데 대해 우려의 목소리가 높습니다. 미 군축협회(Arms Control Associaton) 크레일(Peter Crail) 연구원입니다.

Crail: 일단 잔해를 완전히 제거하게 되면 정확히 그곳에서 무슨 일이 벌어졌는지를 입증하기가 힘들어지기 때문에 큰 우려를 자아냅니다.

신속한 잔해철거엔 국제사찰의 눈을 피하려는 의도도 있어 보입니다. 미국국제과학안보연구소(ISIS)의 데이비드 올브라이트 소장도 워싱턴 포스트지와의 인터뷰에서 ‘국제원자력기구 사찰팀이 현장을 방문하고 싶어한다는 점을 고려하면, 철거 속도가 의의로 빠르다‘고 지적했습니다. 국제원자력기구 전문가들은 시리아 핵의혹 시설에 대한 상업위성 사진을 입수해 이미 판독작업에 들어간 상태입니다.

시리아 인부들은 핵의혹 시설뿐 아니라 이 시설에서 약 700여미터 떨어진 곳에 있는 조그만 부속 건물도 현재 철거중인 것으로 전해졌습니다. 이 건물은 원자로에 냉각수를 공급하기 위한 일종의 펌프장일 가능성이 높다는 지적입니다. 국제과학안보연구소의 올브라이트 소장은 이번에 철거된 시설이 형태와 크기에서 북한 영변핵시설과 비슷하다면서 특히 인근 펌프장은 이 시설이 핵시설임을 강력히 보여준다고 지난 24일 말했습니다.

Albright: (Water's used to cool the reactor, the N. Korean type reactor)

'북한 원자로는 1차적으로 이산화탄소를 이용해 냉각시키고, 이 과정에서 뜨거워진 가스를 냉각수로 식히는 2차 냉각장치를 갖고 있습니다. 시리아 유프라테스 강가에서 발견된 펌프장도 원자로에 냉각수를 보내기 위한 시설로 의심됩니다“

미국 정부는 문제의 시리아 시설에 북한이 연루됐다고 아직까지 단정적으로 말하진 않고 있습니다. 그러나 미국 의회는 북한과 시리아간의 핵연계설을 심각히 받아들이고 있습니다. 6자회담 미국측 수석대표인 힐 차관보는 25일 의회청문회에서 ‘북한 핵확산 의혹문제가 해소되지 않는 한 어떠한 협정도 불가능하다‘는 입장을 천명했습니다.

=============================
[NYT]수리야 핵시설 완전히 사라져..위성사진
이스라엘 F-15I가 공폭한 수리야(시리아) 핵시설[북괴모델의 건설중인 원자로]이 8월10일/10월24일 두 위성사진의 비교로 완전히 사라진 것으로 드러났다고 NYT가 10월26일 보도..

이 놀라운 광경은 수리야가 북괴의 도움으로 핵병기 개발을 하려던 계획이 드러날 것을 두려워해 서둘러 증거를 완전히 없애버린 것으로 밖에 볼 수 없다는 게 정보기관 사람들의 얘기..

사진은 클릭하면 확대됨..




Satellite images from Aug. 10 and Oct. 24 by DigitalGlobe

Satellite imagery of a facility in Syria collected on August 10, 2007, left, and October 24.


[THE NEW YORK TIMES]

October 26, 2007

Photos Show Cleansing of Suspect Syrian Site

By WILLIAM J. BROAD and MARK MAZZETTI

New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site that Israel bombed last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.

Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.

The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September, which the Israelis have not confirmed. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that what Israel hit was a largely empty military warehouse.

But the images, federal and private analysts said Thursday, suggest that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike, saying its removal could be interpreted as a tacit admission of guilt.

'It's a magic act — here today, gone tomorrow,' said a senior intelligence official. 'It doesn't lower suspicions; it raises them. This was not the long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It's incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away.'

Any attempt by Syrian authorities to clean up the site could make it harder for international weapons inspectors to determine the exact nature of the activity there. Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna have said they are analyzing the satellite images and ultimately want to inspect the site in person.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that this week released a report on the Syrian site, said Thursday that the building's removal was inherently suspicious.

'It looks like Syria is trying to hide something and destroy the evidence of some activity,' Mr. Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector, said in an interview. 'But it won't work. Syria has got to answer questions about what it was doing.'

American officials still refuse to publicly confirm that the satellite photos show the site that Israel bombed. But the senior intelligence official said it was indeed the same location.

Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on the satellite pictures.

A reactor of the size of what analysts believe Syria was building would have been able to make enough plutonium to fuel about one nuclear weapon a year. But removing the plutonium from spent fuel rods would require a reprocessing facility for which analysts have reported no evidence.

Satellite images of the Syrian site were released by DigitalGlobe, in Longmont, Colo., and SPOT Image Corporation, in Chantilly, Va. They show a smooth, unfurrowed area where the large building once stood.

'It's clearly very suspicious,' said Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the Center for American Progress in Washington. 'The Syrians were up to something that they clearly didn't want the world to know about.'

Mr. Cirincione said the photographic evidence 'tilts toward a nuclear program,' but did not prove that Damascus was building a reactor. Besides, he said, even if Syria was developing a nuclear program, it was still years away from being operational and thus not an imminent threat.

The desolate Syrian site is situated on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River some 90 miles north of the Iraqi border and seven miles north of the desert village of At Tibnah. An airfield lies nearby.

The new images, in addition to revealing the removal of the tall building, show still standing a secondary structure and what could be a pumping station on the Euphrates. Analysts suspect the pumping station was for cooling the reactor.

The building was said by analysts to have been modeled on a design used by the North Koreans, whose building is a few feet larger that the Syrian building that vanished.

Mr. Albright called the Syrian site 'consistent with being a North Korean reactor design.'

In an interview last week with The Dallas Morning News, Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, denied that his country was trying to build a reactor.

'There is no Syrian nuclear program whatsoever,' he said. 'It's an absolutely blatant lie.'

Later in the interview he added, 'We understand that if Syria even contemplated nuclear technology, then the gates of hell would open on us.'

Even some outside experts who were skeptical that Syria might be developing a nuclear program expressed surprise at the striking difference in the satellite photos taken some two months apart.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, which monitors nuclear sites around the globe and has begun discussions with Syrian authorities, said the agency had no comment on the new images.

Other countries — including Iraq after the Persian Gulf war and Iran in 2003 and 2004 — have bulldozed buildings suspected of clandestine nuclear activity.

The Institute for Science and International Security, Mr. Albright's group, released a report analyzing the new DigitalGlobe image. The building, it said, had been 'completely removed and the ground scraped.'

The comparison of August and October images, it said, 'effectively confirms that this site was indeed the target of the Israeli raid' in September.

The report said tractors or bulldozers could be seen where the suspected reactor building once stood, as well as scrape marks on the ground. It added that the dismantling and removal of the building 'at such a rapid pace dramatically complicates any inspection of the facilities.'

The report said Syria had an obligation to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency of its decision to construct any new nuclear facility. It added that weapons experts were now debating whether Syria would have violated its safeguards agreement with the agency if it started clandestine work on a nuclear reactor.

Syria signed an agreement with the agency in 1992 and is obligated, the report said, under that accord to report on its nuclear plans and developments to the Vienna agency, which is an arm of the United Nations.

'An important question,' the report said, 'is whether Syria may be in violation of its agreements.'

If the atomic energy agency found Syria in violation of its responsibilities, it could refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions, as has recently occurred in the case of Iran and its suspected nuclear weapons program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/middleeast/26syria.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin