IAEA, US, Britain reach agreement over Libya nukes

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, January 20, 2004

IAEA, US, Britain reach agreement over Libya nukes

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed on Monday with the United States and Britain on how to dismantle nuclear weapon programs in Libya.

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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed on Monday with the United States and Britain on how to dismantle nuclear weapon programs in Libya.

"I think we reached a very good agreement," IAEA's chief Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference here.

Under the agreement, ElBaradei said, the IAEA would be responsible for assessing the nuclear disarmament process in Libya, while the United States and Britain would implement the destruction and removal of equipment and materials there.

The agreement was reached after what ElBaradei called a "very constructive" meeting with US Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Britain's top disarmament expert William Ehrman.

ElBaradei told reporters that "the agency's role is very clear--that we need to do the verification."

"We clearly need British and American support with logistics and I think the meeting was trying to coordinate our cooperation," he said.

The UN nuclear watchdog had differed with the United States and Britain in viewing Libya's nuclear weapon programs. The agency believed Libya was nowhere near producing a nuclear weapon, while the two countries hold that Libya must have gone further in the process.

Libya announced last month it was abandoning weapons of mass destruction. The IAEA also said on January 14 that the country had formally ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The nuclear test ban treaty forbids any test explosion of nuclear weapons, and when it goes into effect, Libya will become a country prohibiting nuclear tests.

Source: Xinhua

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