Baradei meets Qadhafi, lauds Libyan cooperation

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TRIPOLI (Reuters) — UN nuclear weapons chief Mohammad Al Baradei met Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi on Monday and praised Tripoli for cooperating with teams conducting the first-ever inspections of its atomic weapons programme. "Libya has shown a good deal of cooperation, a good deal of openness," said Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "This is a country that appears fully committed to cooperating."

He led a team of inspectors invited to the north African country to see how far it had progressed towards developing a bomb and to make sure it went no further.

In a shock move following months of secret talks with US and British officials, Libya said this month it was abandoning efforts to obtain nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

At a half-hour meeting with Baradei, Qadhafi repeated his commitment to eliminating weapons of mass destruction. He also agreed to sign the Additional Protocol to the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing snap inspections.

"Libya committed today to act as if the protocol was in force," Baradei told reporters.

After Libya's sudden renunciation of banned weapons programmes, US President George W. Bush — who has made tackling proliferation of such weapons a top priority — promised to reward Libya with "far better" US relations.

Baradei said Libya's decision to come clean about its weapons programmes would be rewarded.

"There are talks now of mainstreaming (Libya's) relations with the US, with Europe," he said.

"(Qadhafi) emphasised that Libya is looking at a different chapter in its relations with the international community, with the West. He put a lot of emphasis on the importance of international assistance for Libya," Baradei told Reuters.

But a senior US official warned the IAEA against taking credit for Libya's new policy.

"Baradei is only there because of us and the Brits," the official told Reuters. "With all due respect, what he is saying about Libya's nuclear programme is based on far less information than we already have."

"There will be additional negotiations and disclosures with the US and the UK to which Libya actually made its commitments," the official added.

The other IAEA inspectors, who will stay on until Thursday, carried out their first full day of inspections on Sunday, visiting four nuclear sites near the capital Tripoli that the UN body had never seen before.

Libya displayed dismantled and boxed uranium enrichment centrifuges — machines which can purify the radioactive material for use in weapons or as nuclear fuel.

As well as checking on Libya's programme, IAEA officials are after clues as to who helped Iran get its enrichment technology. Both countries say they got centrifuges on the black market.

Baradei, who has said he did not think Libya was close to making a bomb, described the centrifuges as sophisticated and of a design the inspectors recognised, though he declined to say if they were similar to those acquired by Iran.

"What we have seen is a programme at a very initial stage," he said. "I am happy that we came in at that stage."

But the senior US official said the UN body had completely missed Libya's weapons programme.

"Up until now, the IAEA had found no evidence of a Libyan nuclear weapons programme, and this trip is in part a damage control exercise... Baradei's trip is an IAEA publicity gimmick in large part," the official said.

Baradei said the inspectors had already interviewed several Libyan scientists and would visit more facilities over the next few days. He told Reuters Qadhafi had "underlined his commitment to a policy of full transparency" to him.

Other UN-linked agencies plan soon to check Libya's possible biological or chemical weapons programmes.