By DPA,
Vienna : Before stopping its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, Libya obtained more sensitive technical information than was previously known, a confidential report by the UN nuclear watchdog said Friday.
According to the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Libya had acquired design information for a nuclear reprocessing plant capable of making 10 kg of plutonium per year.
The nuclear bomb that the US dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 contained 6.1 kg of plutonium.
The report, which was sent to IAEA board members Friday, noted, however, that the IAEA had not found any facilities related to the blueprints, and that some key technical information was missing from the documents.
Through a smuggling network set up by Pakistani government scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, Libya obtained technology and information related to many aspects of nuclear-weapons-building, including a blueprint for a nuclear warhead.
The IAEA report revealed that Khan’s relations to the north African country started already in 1984, around 10 years earlier than previously assumed.
The summary report by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei concludes that there are no outstanding issues in the UN nuclear watchdog’s investigation of Tripoli’s weapons programme.
Therefore, the agency would “continue to implement safeguards in Libya as a routine matter,” from now on, ElBaradei wrote.