UN watchdog team visits Libyan nuclear sites

The UN nuclear watchdog said yesterday it had begun inspections of Libya’s nuclear facilities and visited four sites near the capital for the first time.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the UN team, which arrived in Tripoli on Saturday led by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, was now drafting a work plan with the Libyan authorities for the coming weeks.

Earlier this month Libya acknowledged trying to develop banned weapons, including nuclear arms, and invited inspectors in.

“Inspections did commence on Sunday. Dr ElBaradei and his team went to four nuclear sites previously unvisited and all four were in the Tripoli area,” Mark Gwozdecky told reporters.

“Right now we are continuing our technical discussions with the Libyan authorities to develop a workplan for the days and weeks ahead.”

He gave no further details of the sites or what they contained.

Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Libya signed in the 1970s, the country is required to declare all sensitive nuclear installations to the United Nations.

The Libyans say they have been working on a pilot scale centrifuge uranium-enrichment programme but have not enriched any uranium. Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use as nuclear fuel or in weapons. Libya’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam said on Saturday Tripoli had never crossed the line from laboratory experiments into actually making weapons.

Mr ElBaradei is expected to stay in Tripoli until today. He is scheduled to meet the deputy prime minister in charge of the nuclear programme and the prime minister.

A diplomat close to the delegation said it was possible Mr ElBaradei would meet Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi today.

Other IAEA inspectors met the deputy prime minister, Matuq Mohamed Matuq, yesterday.

He is also minister for science and research and the head of Libya’s nuclear programme.

Those meeting him included Jacques Baute, head of the IAEA's Iraq Nuclear Verification Office, and Pierre Goldschmidt, IAEA deputy general-director and one of the main nuclear inspectors in Iran.

Some IAEA officials will stay in Tripoli until Thursday and are expected to be shown “everything they need to see”, said a diplomat close to the delegation.

Gaddafi’s oil-rich state, long on the US list of sponsors of terrorism, said earlier this month it was abandoning plans to build an atomic bomb and other banned weapons.

Although the United States and Britain had suggested Tripoli was close to developing a weapon, Mr ElBaradei said in an interview en route to Libya he did not think the North African state had been close to building a bomb.