VIENNA, Aug 30: Libya appears to be earnest in its efforts to reveal the extent of its atomic bomb programme, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report published on Monday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said one major caveat to the confidential report's conclusion is the need to verify that Libya has not passed on the design for a nuclear warhead that it acquired on the black market.
"The agency's assessment to date is that Libya's declarations on its uranium conversion programme, enrichment programme and other past nuclear-related activities appear to be consistent with information available to and verified by the agency," the IAEA said in the report.
The report also praised Libya for its "good cooperation with the agency since the beginning of verification activities in Libya following Libya's declaration in Dec 2003".
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's surprise decision to abandon banned weapons was one of the major steps in the recent reintegration of the once-isolated North African state into the international community.
This came shortly after Qadhafi agreed to pay damages for the Lockerbie, Scotland. Although its investigation is proceeding well, the IAEA said there were still some questions to be answered for it to reach a definitive conclusion on Tripoli's covert quest for the bomb.
"There are still some areas related to the acquisition of (uranium hexafluoride), uranium conversion technology and enrichment technology that need further investigation in order to fully verify the completeness and correctness of Libya's declarations," the diplomat quoted the report as saying.
Diplomats said one of the most critical issues concerns a warhead design that Libya said it had received from the same Pakistani-led nuclear network that supplied Iran and North Korea.
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said that in order to be certain that Libya or the original providers did not pass on the design to other states the agency is "going to need additional information from the provider and from the contractors which helped Libya develop its dual-use infrastructure".
FORENSIC ANALYSIS: The IAEA report said the design is now "undergoing forensic analysis to establish inter alia the dates of the printing and the source of the paper, as well as other characteristics".
Western diplomats in Vienna have alleged that the design was most likely of Chinese origin and was provided by Pakistanis. The United States and a number of other countries believe that Iran may also have acquired this weapons design, though the Iranians have denied getting the design or anything that would not be useful in a peaceful nuclear power programme. -Reuters
