The IAEA will withdraw uranium and waste from the former Syrian nuclear program following an agreement negotiated by Washington
After the fall of Assad's regime, Israel even bombed access points to the facility to prevent third parties from entering the site. For over a year, Washington and Jerusalem discussed various alternatives to definitively neutralize the risk.
Israel even warned that it could attack the site again if it detected attempts to remove the material without supervision. The Trump administration then pushed for a diplomatic solution and secured the support of the new Syrian government to proceed with its removal.
Tensions rose again weeks ago when Israeli services detected movements around the facility and suspected that Syrian authorities were trying to access the material. There were also fears within Israel about possible involvement from Turkey.
Washington urged Israel not to act militarily and included the IAEA in the negotiations. About three weeks ago, the international agency and the Syrian government finally signed an agreement to remove the nuclear material.
The operation has not yet been completed, and the items remain on site. However, U.S. officials expect to begin the process soon and finalize the removal before the end of 2026, closing one of the most sensitive chapters inherited from the Assad regime.
The Syrian government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa reached an understanding with the United States and Israel to remove nuclear material inherited from the Bashar al-Assad regime, stored for years in a clandestine facility linked to Syria's former atomic program.
The agreement, negotiated by the administration of Donald Trump, will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to remove the material located at the so-called “Site 99”, according to U.S. and Israeli officials who revealed this to Axios.
The facility was closely monitored by Israel due to its connection to Al-Kibar, the clandestine nuclear reactor developed during Assad's regime and bombed by the Israel Defense Forces in 2007. Although that attack destroyed much of the Syrian nuclear program, various research and storage facilities remained.
Among the items stored at Site 99 was yellowcake, a concentrated form of uranium that can subsequently undergo various processes within the nuclear fuel cycle, as well as waste from the Al-Kibar project.
According to U.S. officials, the stored material could not be directly used to manufacture a nuclear weapon, but it did pose a security risk because it could be employed in a “dirty bomb”, a conventional explosive designed to disperse radioactive material and contaminate a specific area.
