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Libya wants to keep uranium conversion plant- diplomats
Vienna, Feb 23: Libya has told the U.N. nuclear watchdog it wants to retain several nuclear facilities, including a uranium conversion plant the United States wants to dismantle and transfer out of Libya, western diplomats said.
Vienna, Feb 23: Libya has told the U.N. nuclear watchdog it wants to retain several nuclear facilities, including a uranium conversion plant the United States wants to dismantle and transfer out of Libya, western diplomats said.
''Two of the facilities are quite innocent but the conversion
plant is a sensitive one,'' a western diplomat who follows the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told. ''Some
countries don't want Libya to keep the plant. The U.S. wants to take
it out of Libya.''
Diplomats said the conversion plant in the north African state would likely be one of the issues IAEA chief Mohamed Elbaradei plans to discuss with senior Libyan officials during his visit to tripoli on Monday and Tuesday.
Elbaradei's visit follows the release on Friday of an IAEA report on Libya's nuclear weapons programme. The report said Libya's atomic effort began as far back as the early 1980s and was much more extensive than previously thought.
The 10-page report was the culmination of a two-month probe by IAEA experts in cooperation with the United States and Britain after Libya agreed in December to renounce its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.
The agency report said Libya had failed to declare a number of highly sensitive experiments linked to weapons production, including ''The separation of a small amount of plutonium'', albeit ''in very small quantities''.
In addition to the creation of a few dozen centrifuges to enrich uranium for use in a bomb, Libya had purchased a pilot uranium conversion plant in the 1980s for converting raw uranium into a slightly more refined form.
Diplomats said the conversion plant in the north African state would likely be one of the issues IAEA chief Mohamed Elbaradei plans to discuss with senior Libyan officials during his visit to tripoli on Monday and Tuesday.
Elbaradei's visit follows the release on Friday of an IAEA report on Libya's nuclear weapons programme. The report said Libya's atomic effort began as far back as the early 1980s and was much more extensive than previously thought.
The 10-page report was the culmination of a two-month probe by IAEA experts in cooperation with the United States and Britain after Libya agreed in December to renounce its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.
The agency report said Libya had failed to declare a number of highly sensitive experiments linked to weapons production, including ''The separation of a small amount of plutonium'', albeit ''in very small quantities''.
In addition to the creation of a few dozen centrifuges to enrich uranium for use in a bomb, Libya had purchased a pilot uranium conversion plant in the 1980s for converting raw uranium into a slightly more refined form.
Conversion is one of the first steps towards creating enriched uranium, which is used as fuel for nuclear power plants or, when highly enriched, in bombs. Libya never successfully enriched any uranium, though analysts and diplomats said it was only a matter of time before it did. Bureau Report