Vienna  - The UN nuclear agency will analyze samples taken from an alleged nuclear reactor site in Syria, its chief inspector said in Vienna upon returning from Damascus on Wednesday.

A team of three International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors led by Olli Heinonen went to Syria last Sunday in a first attempt to probe whether a site bombed by Israel last year was an undeclared reactor under construction.

The IAEA team had been able to carry out its planned work "to a large extent", Heinonen said. His team visited the alleged nuclear site at al-Kibar and held talks with Syrian officials.

"I think it was a good start, but there is still work which remains to be done," he said.

Before the inspector's visit to the al-Kibar site, diplomats said the IAEA would push for access to additional locations.

"We took samples which we needed to take and now it's time to analyze and also look at the information which we got from Syria", Heinonen said.

Heinonen did not say whether Damascus had promised to allow visits to other possible nuclear-related sites in the future. Next steps and possible further investigations would be determined in the weeks and months to come, he said.

In April, the IAEA received US intelligence indicating that the al-Kibar site in a desert area in north-eastern Syria was a secret reactor for plutonium production, being constructed with North Korean help.

But US intelligence reports also say that the facility was not yet operational when it was destroyed by the Israeli air force in September 2007. No nuclear material had been introduced into the reactor.

Syria maintains that the bombed site was an unused military facility under construction. (dpa)