The Syria Corner

GERTZ -WASHINGTON — Turkey could be cooperating with Syria's weapons of mass destruction program.

A leading U.S. analyst said Turkey's protests of an Israeli air operation in eastern Syria on Sept. 6 indicated that Ankara was cooperating with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad on strategic issues.

A Texas-based consulting firm said in a report that Ankara might have helped establish a Syrian nuclear facility near the Turkish border.

"If the Syrians are actually storing anything sensitive along the Turkish-Syrian border, that would mean that the Syrians might have some sort of understanding with the Turks that would be extremely important for the region," the report for Stratfor, entitled "Geopolitical Diary: The Israeli Overflight Mystery Deepens," said. "For us, the location of the facility is more startling than the possibility of a North Korean shipment of chemical weapons or even a dry run for a strike on Teheran."

On Sept. 14, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Semmel said North Koreans were working on secret projects in Syria. Semmel raised the prospect that this included WMD facilities in northeastern Syria.

Later, a former Syrian military officer told the New York Sun that Damascus has conducted a secret nuclear program since at least 1986. The former officer was quoted as saying on Sept. 19 that North Korean nationals were working in Syrian nuclear programs at facilities protected by advanced Russian-origin air defense systems.

The report dismissed most of the speculation over the Israel Air Force operation in Syria. This included claims that Israel conducted an exercise to demonstrate its capability to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, or sought to stop an Iranian weapons shipment to Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Turkey has reported finding two auxiliary fuel tanks from Israeli F-15I fighter-jets. Ankara, which since 2003 signed military cooperation and other agreements with Damascus, has discussed the issue with Syria and raised the prospect that Israeli air force exercises in Turkey could be curtailed.

"Since when do the Syrians trust the Turks enough to do anything important along the border?" the report asked. "Since when do the Israelis have to do reconnaissance flights along the border? The Turks patrol that area pretty intensely. We had thought there was a strong intelligence-sharing program."

In 2006, U.S. officials said the American intelligence community suspected that WMD components were moving through Turkey to Iran and Syria. The officials, who spoke on background, said Washington was also concerned that Turkey had obtained nuclear weapons components from the nuclear smuggling ring led by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Kahn.