Libya seeks reward for scrapping banned weapons

A pariah for decades, Libya asked yesterday to come in from the cold after a surprise announcement that it was abandoning illicit weapons programmes.

As the United States and Britain promised rewards, Tripoli acted swiftly to prove its commitment to the world at large. A top Libyan official met the head of the UN nuclear watchdog to discuss its proposals to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

Almost 15 years to the day since his agents brought down a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie and eight months after US and British troops toppled Saddam Hussein on suspicion of developing banned weapons, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has now opened the prospect of an end to sanctions and a return of US oil firms.

Britain said Libya had been close to making an atomic bomb, but information about Tripoli's weapons capabilities was vague.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, met a senior Libyan official yesterday in Vienna to discuss eliminating the weapons of mass destruction programme.

"Dr ElBaradei met Libya's secretary of the National Board of Scientific Research to discuss the Libyan government's desire to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction programme," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.

Libya said on Friday it was ready to accept strict IAEA nuclear safeguards. Western diplomats said that prior to the Libyan announcement, the IAEA had been growing increasingly concerned about signs Tripoli wanted to develop atomic arms.

Several Western diplomats told Reuters there were indications Libya had been trying to gather a team of nuclear experts from ex-communist states in eastern Europe in what looked like the beginnings of a future weapons programme.

Some US officials said it was too early to say when, or if, Washington will lift sanctions after Libya's move on arms. Tripoli's announcement on Friday was the culmination of secret talks with Britain and the US launched around the time of the Iraq invasion.

Britain suggested the Iraqi leader's fate could have been different if he had co-operated. US President George W. Bush, who also accuses Iran and North Korea of seeking nuclear arms, said he hoped others would follow the example set by Gaddafi, a man former US President Ronald Reagan once called a "mad dog".

European critics of the invasion of Iraq remarked pointedly that it showed peaceful diplomacy could bring about disarmament.

"Libya wants to solve all problems and we want to focus on development and advancing our country. This (weapons) programme does not benefit our people or country," Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam told Al-Jazeera television.

"We want to have ties with America and Britain because this is in the interest of our people," Chalgam said.

The head of the Arab League said Israel, widely believed to have a nuclear weapons capability, should do the same as Libya.

Libya's move came ahead of today's anniversary of the Christmas 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland that killed 270 people. British relatives of the victims welcomed the news that dialogue had brought disarmament, Tripoli's second dramatic step this year to rejoin the international community.

Libya was freed of broader UN sanctions this year after accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paying billions to victims' families. Washington left its sanctions in place, accusing Tripoli of seeking biological and chemical arms.

US warplanes bombed Tripoli in 1986 after the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub frequented by American soldiers. The US attack hit Gaddafi's home, killing his adopted infant daughter.

Washington bans most economic activity and bars visits to Libya using US passports without US government permission.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Gaddafi's decision had been "statesmanlike and courageous". "If Saddam had come to us a year ago or more... then the situation in Iraq would have been a very different one," he added.

The Libyan leader's son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, said the Iraq war had nothing to do with the timing of Libya's talks. "We started the co-operation before even the invasion of Iraq," he told CNN.

But he added: "It's a critical deal for Libya, because first of all we will get access to defensive weapons and no sanctions on Libyan arms imports any more. We will get access to the knowhow and technology in sectors which were banned."

France urged Libya to "implement without delay" compensation for families of victims of a 1989 bombing of a French airliner.

US officials said Libya's nuclear programme was "much further advanced" than had been thought and it acknowledged co-operating with North Korea to develop long-range missiles.

Libya said its move showed commitment to "building a world free of weapons of mass destruction and all sorts of terrorism".

Bush immediately praised Libya, saying: "Its good faith will be returned." He said Tripoli's progress would be monitored.

Lifting sanctions could allow US oil companies back into Libya, where they once produced more than one million barrels per day (bpd) and where oil facilities could reach two million bpd within five years, the US Energy Department says.

US sanctions dating from 1982 and strengthened in 1986, ban the import of Libyan crude oil, as well as direct trade and commercial contracts, and keep US firms out of Libya.