Chief UN nuke inspector in Libya

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog arrived in Tripoli yesterday to begin scrutinising Libya's nuclear facilities, saying the country did not seem to have been close to building an atomic bomb.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said on his way to take up Libya's recent offer to open its nuclear facilities there were no signs it had enriched uranium - a step that could be the first move to a bomb. "From the look of it, they were not close to a weapon, but we need to go and see it and discuss the details with them," he said in an interview with Reuters on the flight to Tripoli.

"The important thing for me is to get a comprehensive understanding of the programme - the origin, its history, its extent, and then agree with the Libyan authorities on a plan of action to eliminate whatever needs to be eliminated that is not linked to peaceful activities."

Libyan leader Muammar 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.

The move marks an about-face for the mercurial Gaddafi, who seized power 34 years ago in the desert nation of 5.5 million. He now wants trading benefits, including an end to US sanctions, in return.

ElBaradei met senior Libyan officials on his arrival and was expected to hold talks with Tripoli's foreign minister later yesterday, a press officer for the ministry told Reuters. ElBaradei was expected to give a news conference after that.

Vienna-based diplomats who watch the IAEA said they believed ElBaradei would also meet Gaddafi, who has pledged to let UN experts assess and dismantle banned weapons projects.

ElBaradei was accompanied by a team of nuclear experts with experience in both Iraq, whose secret atom bomb programme the IAEA dismantled in the 1990s, and Iran, which Washington accuses of having an Iraq-style nuclear weapons programme.

Iran denies this but has acknowledged keeping a uranium enrichment programme secret for nearly two decades.

Pakistan is helping the IAEA in its investigation after the UN body determined that uranium-enrichment centrifuge designs used by Iran at its enrichment plant at Natanz were identical to those Pakistan is known to have acquired and developed.

Islamabad has been questioning the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and scientists close to him.

"I think they're (Pakistan) co-operating well with us and I hope we will continue to co-operate with them to get to the bottom of the story," ElBaradei said.

In a Vienna meeting this month, a senior Libyan official told ElBaradei that Tripoli had also embarked on a uranium enrichment programme, though it was only at the planning stage.

The official also said Tripoli, which has signed the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), would soon sign an NPT protocol permitting more intrusive, short-notice checks.

Several Western diplomats told Reuters they were aware of suspicions Libya was preparing a nuclear arms programme.

But they said US and British assertions that Tripoli was close to developing a nuclear weapon may have been exaggerated.

For much of Gaddafi's rule, Libya has been under US or UN sanctions, accused of sponsoring or carrying out terrorist acts ranging from bombing airliners to training foreign guerrillas.

UN sanctions were lifted this year after Libya agreed to pay compensation for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, which killed 270 people. But Washington kept its embargo in place.