WASHINGTON, March 16: Washington offended Tripoli with its "dog-and-pony show" display of Libya's dismantled nuclear weapons, a UN official said on Tuesday.

The White House put on the display for the media on Monday of components flown out of Tripoli in late January under a sudden Libyan agreement to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction.

"Libya was quite unhappy with this dog-and-pony show because it hurts them domestically (and) in the Arab world," said the senior official close to the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"It looks like unilateral US disarmament of Libya and Libya wants it recognized as disarmament under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, and IAEA auspices," the Vienna-based official added. -Reuters