But Syria continues to deny inspectors follow-up access to a desert site where Israel bombed a building in 2007 which US intelligence reports said was a nascent, North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to yield atomic bomb fuel.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has been checking whether there could be a link between the Damascus reactor and the bombed Dair Alzour site after discovering unexplained particles of processed uranium at both.
Syria turned down a planned IAEA inspection of the Damascus reactor in February, saying it was too busy with preparations for an IAEA Board of Governors meeting. But inspectors have now been allowed to examine the site.
"They visited Damascus only," a diplomat close to the IAEA said. The nuclear watchdog's next report on Syria is due toward the end of May.
Syria has denied ever having an atom bomb program.
But in his February report on Syria, new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano gave independent support to Western suspicions for the first time by saying the uranium traces found in a 2008 visit by inspectors pointed to nuclear-related activity on the ground.
Syria's envoy to the IAEA has suggested Israel dropped uranium particles on to its soil to make it look as if a covert nuclear weapons plant was being built, an explanation which has been treated with skepticism by Western diplomats.
The IAEA wants to re-examine the desert site so it can take samples from rubble removed immediately after the air strike.
The agency has also been seeking access to three other Syrian sites under military control whose look was altered by landscaping after inspectors asked for access.
Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle East state to possess nuclear weapons, although it maintains public ambiguity about its capability.
