Syria agrees to surrender Assad-era nuclear material to IAEA

Syria has agreed to surrender its remaining stockpile of nuclear material to the UN's atomic watchdog, but the breakthrough is unlikely to bring Damascus and Israel any closer to a security agreement, a senior Syria analyst told The New Arab, as negotiations remain stalled over Israeli occupation and withdrawal demands.

"The legacy reactor residue unlocks none of that," Nanar Hawach, senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, told TNA, saying the nuclear file was largely separate from the disputes that have frustrated US attempts to broker an agreement between the two countries.

The assessment comes after US and Israeli officials told Axios that Syria had agreed to hand the material over to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) under a US-brokered deal reached several weeks ago, following weeks of Israeli threats to bomb Syrian facilities.

The Trump administration and the IAEA had raced to secure the material amid concerns that the issue could provoke a new crisis involving Israel, Syria and potentially Turkey.

The stockpile is a remnant of a secret nuclear programme pursued under the Assad regime more than two decades ago. The material was reportedly connected to the Al-Kibar nuclear reactor in Deir Ezzor governorate, which Israel destroyed in 2007, although several storage and research and development sites remained intact.

A US official said the material included powdered uranium ore known as yellowcake, which can be enriched as part of the process of producing nuclear fuel or weapons and could also potentially be used in a "dirty bomb".

Six months after Bashar al-Assad's overthrow, Syria's new government agreed to give the IAEA unrestricted access to the facility and several other sites connected to the former government's nuclear programme.

But Israeli officials later said they had detected possible attempts by Syria's new authorities to access material at a facility known as Site 99 and suspected they were receiving assistance from Turkey.

When questioned by the Trump administration, Syrian officials said they had been unaware that nuclear material was stored at the site.

"We think everybody is happy with the result. Hopefully we will be able to kick off the removal process soon and end it before the end of the year," the US official told Axios.

The harder question of Israel-Syria talks

For Washington, removing the material may close one sensitive file inherited from the Assad era. But it does little to resolve the disputes at the heart of negotiations between Syria and Israel.

"I expect the handover to have little to no impact because it speaks to Washington's non-proliferation agenda while the negotiations themselves are stuck on territory, Israeli withdrawal lines, the demilitarised zone and the Druze question," Hawach told TNA. "The legacy reactor residue unlocks none of that."

Relations between Damascus and Israel have sharply deteriorated since Assad's overthrow. Israel seized strategic areas of southern Syria after his fall and launched extensive attacks that destroyed much of the country's remaining military capabilities.

Israeli forces continue to occupy parts of Quneitra, Daraa and Damascus provinces and carry out regular raids in villages near the occupied Golan Heights.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa has spoken favourably about reaching a security agreement with Israel, but negotiations have struggled to make progress amid disagreements over Israeli forces remaining on Syrian territory.

Hawach said the nuclear agreement could nevertheless strengthen the position of US officials advocating continued engagement with Syria's new authorities by demonstrating Damascus's willingness to resolve an inherited security issue through negotiation.

"The deal shows Damascus is willing to resolve inherited files through cooperation while Israel's approach continues to rest on indefinite deployment and strikes," he said.

Other Syrian analysts similarly see the agreement as part of a broader effort by Damascus to remove potential Israeli pretexts for further attacks while distancing the new government from the military programmes it inherited from Assad.

Rashid Hourani, a researcher specialising in security and military affairs, told TNA that Syria's new authorities had adopted a more open approach to the nuclear file and cooperation with international organisations, in part to demonstrate that Damascus does not pose a threat to neighbouring countries or the wider region.

The government also hopes its cooperation over the nuclear and chemical weapons files will help secure greater political and economic support for Syria's recovery, he said.

Hourani cautioned, however, that the new authorities could face difficulties establishing exactly what remains of the former government's nuclear programme, with conditions on the ground not necessarily matching existing documentation after the disorder surrounding Assad's fall.

Some documents or materials may have been removed by the former government or its allies during that period, he said, adding that cooperation with the IAEA could help resolve those discrepancies over the short and medium term.

Khaled Khalil, an expert on Syrian-Israeli relations, said Damascus's cooperation with the IAEA had also deprived Israel of one potential justification for military action.

He described the agreement as evidence of a Syrian policy based on "realism and clarity" in handling sensitive security issues, contrasting that approach with Israel's continued military operations inside Syria.

"Damascus sent messages of reassurance to the region and was not a source of concern," Khalil told TNA, arguing that Syria had increasingly presented itself as a partner in regional security.

Through active diplomacy, he added, Damascus had succeeded in "taking many cards out of the hands of the Israeli occupation", even as Israel continued trying to impose facts on the ground and intervene in Syrian affairs.

The Trump administration has meanwhile moved rapidly to build ties with al-Sharaa's government, lifting Assad-era economic sanctions, reopening its embassy in Damascus and supporting Syria's diplomatic and economic reintegration.