Washington: Syria "utterly denies" US allegations that it built a nuclear reactor with the help of North Korea, the embassy in Washington said.

"The government of the Syrian Arab Republic regrets and denounces the campaign of false allegations that the current United States administration continually launches against Syria claiming the presence of nuclear activity," it said in a statement.

Damascus "utterly denies these allegations," it said. The White House publicly accused North Korea yesterday of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor able to produce plutonium and said the facility was "not intended for peaceful purposes."

Syrian ambassador Imad Moustapha earlier rejected the allegations as a "ridiculous story," and pointedly compared them to US claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The weapons never materialized.

"This administration has a proven record of fabricating stories about other countries WMDs. It is so extraordinary," he said.

In the embassy statement, Syria urged the US to "act responsibly and desist from creating further crises in the Middle East, which already suffers from the results and repercussions of failed American policies in the region."

Moustapha said he had been called into the US State Department yesterday where officials showed him "ridiculous satellite-taken photographs of a building in the Syrian desert, saying this is a nuclear reactor."

He said the claims were "preposterous," adding "It's just photographs of vacant buildings."
Source : PTI