Syria, NKorea helped Iran develop nuclear programme: German report

BERLIN (AFP) — Damascus and Pyongyang helped Iran to develop its nuclear programme through the construction of a suspected nuclear site in Syria that Israel destroyed last September, Der Spiegel reported.

But the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is considering withdrawing his support for the Iranian programme, added the German newsweekly in its next edition out Monday, quoting German secret service reports.

According to those intelligence reports, it said, a joint plan by Syria, North Korea and Iran for a nuclear reactor for military use was to have been developed at the Al-Kibar site in the east of Syria.

The site -- to be inspected next week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- was destroyed by Israeli warplanes with Washington's support. Syria denied it has military purposes.

The reports cited by Der Speigel claimed that North Korea was to help Iranian scientists to advance their nuclear programme, and ...