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Seoul, South Korea: North Korea strongly denied on Tuesday that it has provided Syria with secret nuclear cooperation, calling the suspicions an ''unskillful conspiracy.''
The North's Foreign Ministry's comments were the first by the government on the issue since suspicions arose after an alleged Israeli air raid earlier this month on unknown Syrian targets.
A senior US nuclear official said on Friday that North Koreans were in Syria and that Syria may have had contacts with ''secret suppliers'' to obtain nuclear equipment.
Andrew Semmel, acting US deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, did not identify the suppliers, but also said he could not exclude that the network run by disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan may have been involved.
A state-run newspaper in Syria said in an editorial on Sunday referring to the nuclear allegations that ''the magnitude of these false accusations might be a prelude to a new aggression against Syria.'' Al Thawra said suggestion of such nuclear cooperation was ''a flagrant lie.''
On Monday, South Korea's foreign minister also dismissed the allegations, Yonhap news agency reported. South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said that Syria does not have a nuclear facility as far as he knows, according to Yonhap.
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