Nuclear inspector planning trip to Libya as early as next week

VIENNA, Austria -- The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday he will lead the first inspection of Libya's nuclear facilities as soon as next week, aiming to kick-start the elimination of the country's programs for weapons of mass destruction.

In the wake of Libya's surprise admission, Pakistan acknowledged Monday the possibility that some of its scientists may have provided nuclear technology to foreign nations.

Pakistan's government has strongly denied allegations it gave such information to countries such as Iran, North Korea and Libya -- but said Monday it has questioned the founder of its nuclear program as part of its inquiry into whether any of its scientists acted without authorization.

Both Libya and Iran have imported centrifuges for uranium enrichment, although Libya -- which publicly owed up Friday to having weapons of mass destruction -- says it stopped short of an enrichment program. Diplomats have identified Pakistan as one source of Iran's equipment procurement.

Acknowledging a possible role by Pakistani scientists, Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press in Islamabad on Monday that "some individuals may have been doing something on their own."

The founder of the nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has been questioned in connection with "the ongoing debriefing sessions" of a "very small number of scientists," but is not in custody, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan.

"No restrictions have been imposed on him," he added.

At least two scientists from Khan Research Laboratories, the country's top nuclear laboratory named after its founder, have been held for questioning this month.

Libya's decision to open its nuclear activities to pervasive inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency followed a meeting its delegation had Saturday in Vienna with Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency's director-general.

In Washington, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the United States expects Gadhafi "to act on the commitments he's made. And the initial signs are positive."

ElBaradei, who announced he would head to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, as early as next week, said much of Libya's technology came from abroad.

He declined to say whether there was a common source for Libya, Iran or prewar Iraq -- or whether the three nations exchanged equipment and expertise.

"There has been, of course, a good deal of importation from abroad of equipment and material," he told reporters. "We do not know yet whether there was any linkage with other nations."

Diplomats familiar with the agency said ElBaradei could fly to Tripoli as early as Friday. They also said he and the IAEA were scrambling to play catch-up after being caught off guard by Libya's admission of having weapons of mass destruction and its decision to scrap them -- the result of nine months of secret negotiations with Britain and the United States.

"The outward signs are that this is a genuine sea change," said a diplomat, describing the Libyans as "forthright and honest," as they opened up sites containing mustard gas on demand to U.S. and British teams over the past nine months.

He said Libya's decision to come clean appeared prompted both by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the international pressure put on Iran through the IAEA to reveal clandestine activities that the United States says point to a nuclear weapons program.

ElBaradei praised what he described as a positive step on the part of Libya "to rid itself of all programs or activities that are relevant or could lead to the production of weapons of mass destruction."

Libya agreed to tell the IAEA about current nuclear programs, adhere to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and sign an additional protocol to give the agency a strong mandate for wide-ranging inspections on short notice.

ElBaradei said Libya's weapons research effort started with a program to enrich uranium through spinning in centrifuges "sometime in the 80s and picked up steam in the 90s."

Also Monday, the world's chemical weapons watchdog said Libya's promise will help rid the globe of "these heinous means of terror, death and destruction."

"Libya's imminent accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention brings us much closer to our shared goal of a world free of these means of terror, death and destruction," the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement from its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.

Libya is one of just 14 countries that has neither signed nor ratified the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibiting the production, storage and use of chemical weapons.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's decision to come clean is the latest in a series of moves to end his country's international isolation and shed its reputation as a rogue nation.

The United States imposed sanctions in 1986, accusing Libya of supporting terrorist groups. Ten years later, America passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which threatened to penalize the U.S. partners of European companies that did significant business in Libya and Iran.

While U.S. sanctions remain in force, the U.N. Security Council voted to abolish its sanctions on Libya in September, after it agreed to pay compensation to families of the Lockerbie bombing.

Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground. A former Libyan intelligence agent was found guilty of the bombing in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison.