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IAEA Learning Details of International Nuclear Network From Libya
The International Atomic Energy Agency is learning more details about the international nuclear black market from Libya, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 23). The IAEA is “getting more details, getting names of more individuals, more companies,” ElBaradei said after the first of two days of meetings with Libyan officials in Tripoli. “We’re still understanding the network, still trying to see if other countries have received the technology, have received the weapons design,” he said. ElBaradei, who is scheduled to meet today with Libyan Foreign Minister Abdulrahman Mohamed Shalgam, also said yesterday that he hoped Libya could finish dismantling its WMD development programs by June. “We have discussed in detail where we are and what needs to be done, and we agree that we will make every effort to come to a closure on this issue by June,” he said (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse, Feb. 24). Several elements of Libya’s nuclear weapons program remain in place, three months after Tripoli pledged to scrap them, ElBaradei said. A member of ElBaradei’s delegation said Libya still possesses assembled uranium enrichment centrifuge equipment (George Jahn, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 24). Libya has told the IAEA that it wants to maintain several nuclear facilities, including a uranium conversion plant the United States wants dismantled, Western diplomats said. “Two of the facilities are quite innocent but the conversion plant is a sensitive one,” a Western diplomat said. “Some countries don’t want Libya to keep the plant. The U.S. wants to take it out of Libya.” (Reuters/Planet Ark, Feb. 24). Diplomats said, though, that Libya is only making a half-hearted attempt to maintain the conversion plant and they expect Tripoli to agree to it being dismantled. Libya also wants to maintain a research reactor, according to Western diplomats. ElBaradei said discussions are being held to convert the research reactor to use low-enriched uranium fuel rather than weapon-grade uranium (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Feb. 24). Meanwhile, the Bush administration is set to lift a ban on U.S. travel to Libya, but most other sanctions will remain in place in the near future, U.S. officials said yesterday. The Bush administration has decided to send a U.S. diplomat to Libya and is considering allowing Libyan students to attend U.S. universities, according to the Washington Post. U.S. and British officials have developed a timetable for additional rewards for Libya as its WMD programs end, a senior U.S. official said (Washington Post, Feb. 24).
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