Nuclear experts begin disarming Libya

Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog joined US and British weapons experts in Libya yesterday as they began the process of dismantling Tripoli's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities.

Western diplomats said staff from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived yesterday in the Libyan capital, where around a dozen US and British experts arrived on Monday.

"Agency inspectors are already at work in Libya verifying the dismantling of its nuclear programmes. More experts are to follow over the coming weeks," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. He gave no details about the size of the UN team.

The announcement that the destruction of Libya's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes was underway comes after Tripoli volunteered on December 19 to abandon its WMD ambitions in a bid to shed its status as a pariah state.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei agreed on Monday on the agency's role in Libya with John Bolton, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, and Bolton's British counterpart William Ehrman.

ElBaradei said the IAEA would verify that Libya's atomic programme was properly dismantled, while the Americans and Britons would physically destroy the weapons capabilities.

Diplomats familiar with the IAEA's work said this was how the agency had worked in Iraq and South Africa, the other countries where it oversaw the destruction of nuclear weapons programmes.

"They (the IAEA) go in there and verify the dismantling," said one Vienna-based diplomat. "They don't otherwise get their hands dirty."

The agency has publicly disagreed with Britain and the United States over the scope of Libya's nuclear programme in recent weeks. The IAEA concluded the North African country was years away from producing a weapon, while London and Washington suggested it was close to doing so.

However, diplomats said ElBaradei was pleased he received assurances that the UN agency, squeezed out of Iraq by the United States and out of North Korea when Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2002, would play a leading role in Libya.

"I hope the dispute is behind us and we can focus on the work that needs to be done," said a diplomat.

In his annual State of the Union address later yesterday, US President George W. Bush was expected to refer to Libya as an example of how US policy has helped make the world safer.

Gary Samore, head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and a former advisor to the Clinton administration, told Reuters the US-British-IAEA division of labour in disarming Libya was an excellent arrangement.

He also said the disarmament agreement the Americans and British worked out with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during nine months of secret diplomacy was an excellent one.

"I think it's a terrific deal," Samore said. "It's exactly the kind of traditional diplomatic approach to dealing with non-proliferation using pressures and inducements to convince countries to give up weapons programmes."

Libya's August 2003 admission of responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and its promise to abandon WMD has set the stage for a possible end to US economic sanctions.

Lifting sanctions would allow US oil companies, including the Oasis Group that includes Marathon Oil Co., Amerada Hess and ConocoPhillips, to resume work in Libya they abandoned when sanctions forced them out in 1986.