On September 16, 2026, at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission and the IAEA signed the Country Programme Framework (CPF) for the period 2026–2031. Six years of structured cooperation, seven priority sectors, and a concrete transfer of nuclear technology to a country that had been rebuilding its relationship with the international community for just eighteen months.
The document was signed by Mudar al-Okla, Director General of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission, and Hua Liu, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Technical Cooperation. The CPF identifies the national priority areas toward which technical cooperation resources and nuclear technology transfers will be directed. Seven sectors are covered: nuclear and radiological safety, health and nutrition, food and agriculture, energy planning and nuclear knowledge management, industrial applications, water resources, and environment — a broad programme addressing areas essential to the country’s development.
Al-Okla explained that the agreement will give fresh momentum to the direct transfer of nuclear technologies in the fields of healthcare, agriculture, water, energy, and radiological safety. Syria’s participation in the 70th IAEA General Conference was described by al-Okla himself as a key milestone in the technical cooperation process between the two entities. Context matters here: on September 9, 2026, the IAEA Board of Governors had suspended the non-compliance finding that had been hanging over Syria regarding its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, after the required technical and legal conditions had been met. The signing of the CPF is therefore the operational follow-up to that normalization.
It is worth retracing the path that led to this point. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi had visited Syria in August 2026, including the Deir Ez-Zor site, calling the visit the most significant progress recorded to date in cooperation between the two entities. The new Syrian government, unlike its predecessor, chose transparency and granted access to sites that had been off-limits for years. Grossi himself had described this collaboration as highly relevant to international security and non-proliferation.
Syria also joined the framework for the Asia-Pacific Research Reactor Network (AsPaRRNet), which brings together representatives from twelve countries. This membership will give Damascus access to a regional mechanism for knowledge exchange and the development of research reactors, including Syria’s own. Two agreements signed in a single day, charting a clear trajectory: Syria intends to build a solid civilian nuclear capacity on internationally recognized institutional foundations. The CPF 2026–2031 is the framework within which that trajectory will take concrete shape.
