ARAB-US RELATIONS - Sept 20 - US Feared N Korea-Syria Link Before Israeli Strike.

The US had concerns about potential nuclear-related co-operation between North Korea and Syria before recently receiving Israeli intelligence on the issue that Israel reportedly used to justify an air strike inside Syria. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli opposition leader, on appeared to confirm reports that Israeli fighter jets had earlier this month launched strikes inside Syria, which US and Israeli media reported were due to concerns that North Korea was helping Syria develop a clandestine nuclear programme. One senior US official said Washington had for some time possessed intelligence about potential nuclear co-operation between the two countries. While declining to outline the specific intelligence, the US official said North Korea would have to address the concerns as part of the declaration of nuclear activities that Pyongyang is required to make to complete the current stage of the six-party talks aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula. The US hopes to complete the stage this year and talks may resume in Beijing next week after North Korea refused to return to the table this week. President George W. Bush on Sept 20 declined to make any comment on the Israeli attack. But when asked whether North Korea was helping Syria with a nuclear programme, he said the US would continue to make clear to North Korea that "we expect them to honour their commitment to give up weapons and weapons programs and, to the extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop their proliferation if they want the six-party talks to be successful". The US official said the administration had made a strategic decision not to raise the issue more forcefully early on in the six-party talks - which include China, Japan, South Korea and Russia - to avoid scuppering the possibility of a successful outcome because of a "Kelly" situation. Negotiations between North Korea and the US broke down in late 2002 after James Kelly, the then top State Department official for east Asian affairs, confronted Pyongyang over its alleged uranium nuclear programme. Three months later, Pyongyang announced its withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The scant information provided by administration officials about the alleged nuclear co-operation has prompted scepticism by experts on the claims that Syria is developing a clandestine nuclear programme, with or without the help of North Korea. "It is highly unlikely that the Israeli attack had anything to do with significant Syrian-North Korean nuclear co-operation", said Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress. "The basic, well-documented fact is that the 40-year-old Syrian nuclear research programme is too basic to support any weapons capability. Universities have larger nuclear programmes than Syria". Most experts have suggested that Israel was much more likely to have targeted some a facility related to for conventional weapons or missiles, over which North Korea and Syria have co-operated in the past. "I would be very, very surprised if the North Koreans were dumb enough to transfer fissile material to Syria or were trying to do work outside of North Korea in a place like Syria", said Michael Green, a former senior Asia adviser to Bush who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The transfer of fissile material in the wake of President Bush's public statement after the nuclear test would be extremely dangerous for North Korea and not worth the risk".