UN inspectors visit Libya nuclear plants

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 yesterday. 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 work plan 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.

Dr 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 Dr 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", a diplomat close to the delegation told Reuters.

Mr 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, Dr ElBaradei told Reuters in an interview en route to Libya he did not think the North African state had been close to building a bomb.

"From the look of it, they were not close to a weapon, but we need to go and see it (their nuclear programme) and discuss the details with them," he said.

Libya said it would demonstrate its transparency by signing a protocol allowing short-notice inspections of its atomic sites that are much more intrusive than permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"Libya will cooperate and deal with the agency (the IAEA) with complete transparency... and Libya will sign the Additional Protocol," the foreign minister said.

"This is a clear message to everybody, especially the Israelis, they must start dismantling their weapons of mass destruction," he added.

Dr ElBaradei said it was unclear who provided Libya with its nuclear technology. Similar to Iran, Libya says it got its enrichment centrifuges from "middlemen" on the black market.

"As we understand, it was through the black market, through the middle people, so the countries of origin (of the technology) were not necessarily aware," he said.

In Iran's case, a combination of Pakistani and other middlemen, aided by a handful of Pakistani scientists appear to have provided Iran with the crucial know-how and hardware to build its enrichment program, diplomats have told Reuters.

The diplomat close to the IAEA delegation said the investigation into the origin of Libya's enrichment programme might provide more answers to the question of where Iran got its technology.