Head of U.N. nuclear watchdog agency visits Libya
ElBaradei: Nuclear program in a 'very nascent stage'
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Mohamed ElBaradei, left, and Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam meet in Tripoli, Libya.
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Libya appears to have stopped producing chemical weapons years ago.
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TRIPOLI, Libya (CNN) -- The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday that Libya's nuclear program is in a "very nascent stage," and stressed how important it is that the North African country agree to inspections on short notice.
Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking to reporters during a visit to help "kick-start" the inspection process, said "what Libya has done so far, and we are going to verify," is "an enrichment program at a very low level of development."
The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said he hopes to develop the work plan and timetable for the inspection process. He will meet with other Libyan officials during his trip and will make a report to the IAEA board of governors next year.
ElBaradei said Libya has a "program that has not enriched uranium" and "has not ended with any industrial-scale facility. It's mostly at the pilot stage, mostly at the laboratory scale."
ElBaradei was asked how the agency -- which had no idea of the country's secret programs over the years -- would be able to monitor Libyan nuclear activity in the years to come.
"The system cannot detect easily concealable small items. Even in Iraq, we said you can't see one single centrifuge," he said. "What we can see is if a country moves into an industrial scale, if the country starts to build a program for a weapon, than hopefully we can detect that program."
Libya recently bowed to international pressure and signed the protocol to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, allowing snap inspections of nuclear facilities.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam, spoke at the news conference with ElBaradei and stressed the country's willingness to cooperate.
ElBaradei emphasized the importance of having the Libyans sign onto an added protocol giving the IAEA the right to perform unannounced and unrestricted inspections at previously unknown nuclear sites.
Last week, Libya announced its decision to dismantle the program and allow international inspectors access to key sites. The decision followed months of secret meetings with U.S. and British officials.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Monday that he hoped his decision to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs would usher in a new era of relations between Libya and the United States.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, the Libyan leader said that, though his country has certain programs and machines, it has no weapons of mass destruction.
The programs he is prepared to dismantle, he said, "would have been for peaceful purposes -- but nevertheless we decided to get rid of them completely."
He said inspectors will see "we don't have anything to hide."
Last week, ElBaradei met with a Libyan intermediary in Vienna, Austria, who told him of Libya's plan to get rid of "materials, equipments and programs which lead to the production of internationally proscribed weapons."
This month marked the 15th anniversary of the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people abroad and 11 on the ground. A Libyan agent is serving a life sentence in a Scottish jail for his part in the 1988 bombing.
Gadhafi acknowledged this year that Libya was responsible for the deaths of 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay compensation worth more than $2 billion to relatives of the victims.
The U.S. and Britain gave clear signs that Gadhafi's move on the weapons issue could lead to the final lifting of sanctions imposed in the wake of the Lockerbie bombing. (Full story)
Relatives of victims said the apparent deal by the West amounts to rewarding terror. (Full story)
From CNN's Andrea Koppel
