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Samore: A Syrian-North Korean Nuclear Relationship?

Council on Foreign Relations

Authors: Gary Samore, Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

September 19, 2007

Gary Samore, an arms control official in the Clinton National Security Council and CFR’s director of studies, says it remains a mystery whether Syria was working with North Korea to receive nuclear technology. He adds, however, that it would make sense that Syria would be interested to develop some kind of deterrent, given that its neighbor, Israel, is said to have nuclear weapons. “Syria has always been an interesting case,” Samore says, “because you would think a country in that position, faced with an enemy that has both conventional and nuclear superiority, would want to develop a nuclear option. That would make a lot of sense.”

In the last week there has been considerable speculation about an Israeli air incursion into Syria near the Syrian-Turkish border. There have been some reports the Israelis were trying to knock out a North Korean supplied nuclear facility. The North Koreans and the Syrians have both denied this. Do you have a guess on what happened?

I know the Israelis have been concerned for some time that Syria might be receiving nuclear assistance from North Korea. In particular, I think the Israelis were worried that North Korea was sharing centrifuge systems with Syria, but I haven’t seen the evidence for that, so it’s hard for me to judge whether that’s a solid concern or not. In any event, it seems unlikely that the Syrian program would have been very advanced. Nonetheless, if Israel thought that there was a real risk that the Syrians were beginning to dabble in centrifuge technology, you could understand why they would try to destroy that at a very early stage.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.