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False Syria nuke report blamed on interpreter

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations on Wednesday blamed an interpreter's mistake for an erroneous report that Syria claimed an Israeli airstrike hit a Syrian nuclear facility, a mistake that made headlines in the Middle East and heightened concerns over Damascus' nuclear ambitions.

Syria denied on Wednesday that one of its representatives told the U.N. General Assembly's committee that deals with disarmament on Tuesday that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility and added that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, quoting an unnamed Foreign Ministry source, said its representative was misquoted - and after more than seven hours of investigation the United Nations said that was indeed the case.

"There was an interpretation error made yesterday when the First Committee was in session," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said. "There was no use of the word 'nuclear.'"

"Although in English the interpreter had suggested that the Syrian delegate had referred to an attack on a nuclear facility, what he said was 'like what happened on the 6th of September against my country,'" Haq said.

The incident started Tuesday night with a U.N. press summary of the First Committee that paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as saying that "Israel was the fourth-largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria."

Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Sept. 6, not July 6.

The target remains unknown but widespread reports say it may have been a nascent nuclear facility, a claim Syria has denied.

President Bashar Assad said this month that the target was an "unused military building."

[Last modified October 18, 2007, 01:26:48]