Inspections begin in Libya

2003-12-29 07:48

Tripoli - In a major step toward disarmament, Libya for the first time let UN nuclear officials inspect four sites related to its nuclear weapons program, all previously cloaked in secrecy.

Sunday's visits led by the chief UN weapons inspector Mohamed ElBaradei are part of an international effort to ensure the North African state has no weapons of mass destruction. They followed the surprise announcement by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi more than a week ago that his country would abandon its pursuit of such weapons.

ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited the four nuclear sites in the capital Tripoli, accompanied by a team of inspectors also from the Vienna-based agency.

ElBaradei spent several hours touring the facilities, said his spokesman, Mark Gwozdecky. He described the sites as new facilities that "have never been mentioned in the media before." No further details were given on the sites or about what the inspection teams discovered.

As a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Libya is required to declare all sensitive nuclear installations to the United Nations.

On arriving in Libya on Saturday, ElBaradei said the North African country appeared to be far from producing nuclear arms.

Gwozdecky said ElBaradei would meet with Matouq Mohammed Matouq, a Libyan deputy prime minister and head of the country's nuclear program, to develop a plan for future inspections.

Some of the inspectors also met with Libyan officials on "technical matters concerning the history of (Libya's) entire program" related to weapons of mass destruction, the UN spokesman said. ElBaradei did not take part in this meeting, he said, providing no further details.

ElBaradei is expected to meet with Libya's prime minister and foreign minister on Monday before returning to Vienna. Gwozdecky said some inspectors will remain in Libya until Thursday to inspect other sites.

Gaddafi's pledge to scrap the weapons programs is the latest in a series of moves to end his country's international isolation and shed its image as a rogue nation. It followed eight months of covert negotiations and inspections by British and US intelligence officials.

Libya, long on the US list of countries that sponsor terrorism, has portrayed the move as a strategic step, insisting it never produced any weapons of mass destruction.

"We didn't arrive to the point of weaponisation," Abdel-Rahman Shalqam, the foreign minister, said in a news conference Saturday.

Shalqam reaffirmed that Libya is committed to full transparency and would sign a protocol allowing wide-ranging inspections on short notice, promises Gaddafi made during his announcement more than a week ago.

Gaddafi said he hoped Libya's action would pressure Israel to disarm. Israel, the only Mideast nation believed to possess nuclear arms, refuses to confirm or deny a weapons program.

ElBaradei praised Libya's new openness as a step in the right direction, "particularly in the Middle East."

"This protocol is not meant to be a threat to a country's national security or dignity but an objective tool to give assurance that the activities are for peaceful means," ElBaradei said.

Shalqam said the government had started to discuss dismantling Libya's weapons program about four years ago.

The IAEA, the UN anti-nuclear proliferation watchdog, was sidelined during the covert US-British talks that led to Libya's revelation that it had a 15-year-old nuclear weapons program.

Diplomats who declined to be named told press that the agency now had access to US and British intelligence, but ElBaradei on Saturday acknowledged that his team was nonetheless going in knowing relatively little.

ElBaradei said Libya received its weapons equipment "through the black market and middle people."

On the Vienna-to-Amsterdam leg of his flight to the Libyan capital, ElBaradei said the Libyans had "tried to develop an enrichment capability" for uranium, apparently as part of a nascent weapons program that was later abandoned.

Libya has been making efforts to erase its tainted international image.

The United Nations lifted sanctions against Libya after it accepted responsibility in September for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to pay $2.7bn to the victims' families.

The United States imposed sanctions against Libya in 1986, claiming it supported terrorist groups. It continues its embargoes but after Gaddafi's nuclear promise hinted at improved economic relations.

- AP