The New York Times on Sunday reported Israel's air attack on Syria last month was “directed against a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel.” The paper said President George W. Bush was aware of this but continued pressing for an agreement in six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.

"Bush administration officials have made clear in recent weeks that the target of the Israeli raid was linked to North Korea in some way,” the daily said. “In fact, the administration has said very little about the country’s suspected role in the Syria case, apparently for fear of upending negotiations now under way in which North Korea has pledged to begin disabling its nuclear facilities."

Bush, it recalled, issued a specific warning to the North last year, "just hours after the test, noting that it was 'leading proliferator of missile technology.'" But now he is refraining from comment on the latest suspicion about North Korean-Syrian trade of nuclear materials.

Unnamed “American and foreign officials would not say whether they believed the North Koreans sold or gave the plans to the Syrians, or whether the North’s own experts were there at the time of the attack,” the paper said. The officials said the transfer of the technology “occurred several years ago."

However, the Times said the U.S. raised the suspected trade of nuclear materials between North Korea and Syria "when the United States, North Korea and four other nations met in Beijing earlier this month."

Quoting unnamed American and Israeli intelligence officers, the daily said, "It would have been years before the Syrians could have used the reactor to produce the spent nuclear fuel that could, through a series of additional steps, be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium."

For this reason, "Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration have made the case that the same intelligence that prompted Israel to attack should lead the United States to reconsider delicate negotiations with North Korea over ending its nuclear program, as well as America’s diplomatic strategy toward Syria," it said. "Some senior policy makers" in the Bush administration "still regard the attack as premature," it said. The Bush administration was reportedly divided at the time about the wisdom of Israel's air strike against Syria.

(englishnews@chosun.com )