TRIPOLI, Dec 23: Muammar Qadhafi invited the world to come to Libya to see for itself that Tripoli was not concealing banned weapons, after promising that the country was abandoning its atomic bomb programme.

“Come and see... We don’t want to hide anything,” the Libyan leader told CNN in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Libyan and UN officials said on Monday that snap checks of Libyan nuclear sites could begin as soon as next week after Tripoli accepted UN inspections to convince the world it was giving up its nuclear weapons programme.

Qadhafi’s oil-rich state, long on the US list of sponsors of terrorism, said last week it was abandoning plans to build an atomic bomb and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It now wants trading benefits, including an end to US sanctions.

“We have no intention to make these weapons, these WMD. But there are many rumours, many accusations, (much) propaganda against Libya, particularly in this field, and we have to stop this propaganda against us,” he said.

“And we say: Why are you accusing us and using propaganda? You exercise terrorist policy against the Libyan people by accusing us,” he said in the interview.

Libya’s moves to scrap its illicit weapons programmes mark an about-face for the mercurial Qadhafi, who seized power 34 years ago in the North African desert nation of 5.5 million.

For much of his rule, Libya has been under US or UN sanctions, accused of sponsoring or carrying out terrorist acts ranging from bombing airliners to training foreign guerillas.—Reuters