US Claims Video Shows North Korea Helped Build Syrian Reactor

The White House was today set to reveal video images it claims support allegations that North Korea was helping Syria to build a nuclear reactor.

The suspected reactor was destroyed by Israeli planes last September in a raid reminiscent of its 1981 raid on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

Little remains known about the raid seven months later, and today's evidence has been keenly anticipated.

US media reports said the video images â€" believed to have been obtained via Israeli intelligence - show Korean faces among the workers at the Syrian plant.

The reports said the video also revealed that the Syrian reactor core's design was the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods.

Following the Israeli attack, Syria kept relatively quiet about the bombing raid on its territory, bulldozing the area and constructing a new building on the exact location of the old one.

Damascus refused to allow international nuclear inspectors to visit the location, fueling suspicions that it had something to cover up.

Speaking in London, the Syrian ambassador to Britain dismissed US accusations that it was helping build a nuclear reactor that could produce plutonium.

Sami al-Khiyami told Reuters that the accusation was intended to put pressure on North Korea in talks about Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"This has nothing to do with North Korea and Syria," he said. "They just want to exert more pressure on North Korea. This is why they are coming up with this story.

"The cooperation between North Korea and Syria has nothing to do with [building] a nuclear facility. Cooperation is mainly economic.

The Bush administration is going public with the video at a sensitive time in negotiations with North Korea about its nuclear program.

Under a recent deal, Pyongyang said it would reveal full details of its nuclear program in return for a lifting of US economic sanctions.

However, progress has stalled. North Korea failed to meet a December 31 2007 deadline for giving a complete list of its fissile material and nuclear weaponry as well as responding to US suspicions of proliferating technology to Syria.

Pyongyang's foreign ministry today said technical matters had been discussed with the US team. "The negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner," a statement said.

There has been speculation that the timing of the briefing is a ploy by administration hawks, such as the vice-president, Dick Cheney, to scupper the talks with North Korea.

They believe North Korea is about to be rewarded for its "bad behavior".

Christopher Hill, the US negotiator with North Korea, has played down the importance of the Syrian incident as a sideshow, and believes the key is stopping Pyongyang from producing more plutonium and giving up what it has.

"Making public the pictures is likely to inflame the North Koreans," a senior administration official told the New York Times.

"And that's just what opponents of this whole arrangement want, because they think the North Koreans will stalk off."

Syria has denounced US and Israeli claims about the alleged reactor, pointing out that the Bush administration presented bogus evidence to the UN security council before the Iraq war.