The US will help Libya generate nuclear electricity, the North African country said yesterday, in an announcement appearing to herald a further improvement in ties with the West.

There was no immediate comment from Washington, which has been repairing ties with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi since he began a series of moves in 2003 aimed at ending decades of international isolation for his oil and gas exporting country.

Libya's official Jana news agency said an agreement between the two countries would be signed shortly.

It would include building a nuclear power plant, helping develop water desalination capacity, joint research and technical projects and training Libyan technicians in the US.

"The General People's Committee authorised on Sunday the General People's Committee for Liaison and International Cooperation to sign the agreement related to Libyan-American cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Jana said, referring to Libya's equivalent of a cabinet and foreign ministry respectively. In 2003 Libya promised to give up nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, but Colonel Gaddafi said at the time that he still hoped to develop a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes.

Washington has voiced hopes that Iran and North Korea will follow Libya's example.

But on March 3 Col Gaddafi renewed a recent complaint that Western countries had failed to properly compensate Libya for scrapping its nuclear arms programme and as a result countries like Iran and North Korea would not follow his lead.

Libya in 2003 ended years of international estrangement by accepting responsibility and starting to pay compensation for the bombing of airliners over Scotland and Niger in 1988 and 1989.

The US government said in May 2006 it would restore formal ties with Libya and take it off the list of countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism.

Col Gaddafi said, last year, the era in which Libya had helped revolutionary groups overseas was over since it was wasteful. Col Gaddafi also said Libya had come close to building a nuclear bomb in its weapons of mass destruction programme.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.