DUBAI, January 23. /TASS/. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expects to gain access this year to sites in Syria that may have been involved in the possible development of nuclear weapons, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in an interview with the Emirati newspaper The National.

In 2018, the Israeli army officially acknowledged for the first time that in 2007 it had bombed a suspected secret nuclear reactor in the city of Deir ez-Zor in northeastern Syria, which was allegedly in the final stages of development at that time. Now, the IAEA wants to resume inspections at the site.

Under the previous government, actions were taken "that were related possibly to the development of nuclear weapons," Grossi said. "Not all of the remnants of that program have been secured and checked. So we have there - and we hope not - but a potential source of proliferation, especially in an environment that is not completely secured, and where different military groups are moving around," he added.

Grossi described the response from the new Syrian authorities as constructive. He recalled that last year he visited one of the suspected nuclear program sites together with Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. "It is going to be one of our main tasks during the year," the IAEA head said.