Vienna, Austria - Libya has handed United Nations inspectors drawings of a nuclear weapon, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday, in the most concrete sign that the North African nation was serious about building such arms.
"We have been shown nuclear weapons drawings that the Libyans have in their possession," Mark Gwozdecky, chief spokesman for the UN nuclear watchdog agency, said in Vienna. "We have put those drawings under our seal, and they are secure."
Asked about the significance of the drawings and the IAEA's announcement that it had them, a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "It's the first time anyone has acknowledged" that Libya entertained intentions of building such a weapon.
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Agency inspectors are in Libya, along with a separate team of US and British experts, to take inventory of its nuclear arms program, part of plans to scrap the weapons of mass destruction that the country admitted last month to possessing.
The diplomat, who is familiar with the agency's work in Libya, said the drawings were not of a complete weapons system including a missile or other means of delivery, but more like a warhead. He described it as "a device that goes boom, which can be put on a missile or can be put into a bomb form."
He said members of the joint US-British team would be taking the drawings out of Libya within the next few days to evaluate them. - Sapa-AP
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