21 February 2004	Saturday	29 Zilhaj 1424

VIENNA, Feb 20: Libya secretly produced a small amount of plutonium, imported enriched uranium and engaged in a number of other activities aimed at producing a nuclear weapon, a report by the UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said that meant Libya was in breach of obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and one Western diplomat said the verdict might prompt the agency's board to report Libya to the UN Security Council.

However, the IAEA would probably not ask the Council to consider sanctions over the breach because it praised Tripoli for coming clean about its nuclear past, the diplomat said.

In December, Libya said it was scrapping its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes and invited US, British and international experts to help it disarm.

The report, authored by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, said Libya failed to declare a number of very sensitive experiments linked to weapons production, including "the separation of a small amount of plutonium", albeit "in very small quantities".

Plutonium and highly-enriched uranium are two substances that can be used to form the core of a nuclear bomb. The IAEA usually defines a "significant" amount of plutonium as the amount needed to build a nuclear weapon - 10kgs - so the "small amount" would have been considerably less than that, most likely a matter of grams.

Among the numerous breaches of Libya's obligations to report its nuclear activities to the IAEA, the agency listed the "failure to declare the import of UF6 (slightly enriched uranium) in 1985, 2000 and 2001...and the import of uranium compounds in 1985 and 2002". UF6 gas is the form of uranium used in enrichment centrifuges to produce enriched uranium. -Reuters