AP Interview: IAEA chief says no Syria progress

VIENNA — The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says his experts met recently with Syrian officials, but came away with no new information on Damascus’ nuclear activities.

Yukiya Amano says “there was nothing concluded” from the talks earlier this month, which arose from a pledge by Damascus to cooperate with an IAEA probe.

Amano told The Associated Press on Friday that the IAEA is still hoping for cooperation.

If none is forthcoming, he says the agency is comfortable in its conclusion that a target destroyed in 2007 by Israeli planes was a nearly finished hidden reactor meant to make plutonium.

Syria says it never hid a nuclear program.