TRIPOLI, 15 May 2004 — Libya’s decision to renounce all arms trade with states accused of proliferating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is another step on its drive to rejoin the world community, its point man on US relations said yesterday.
“Libya’s decision should accelerate its removal from the American list of countries supporting terrorism,” its ambassador to Britain, Mohammed Al-Zouay, told AFP. “This decision definitively closes this file (on WMD) and represents a promise by Libya to not return to these programs whatever the circumstances,” said Zouay, who is also in charge of relations with Washington.
On Thursday, Libya said it would no longer purchase weapons from countries which have not signed the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). The United States said the measure covered North Korea, Syria and Iran, although Tripoli did not specifically name the three countries.
The MTCR, set up in 1987, is an informal arrangement among 33 nations that aims to stem the spread of ballistic and cruise missiles. Libya, which bought its Scud missiles from North Korea, has been moving to rejoin the world community since it agreed in December to shelve its weapons of mass destruction programs after months of secret talks with London and Washington.
It also agreed to compensate the families of those killed in the bombings of a PanAm jumbo jet over Scotland in 1988 and a French airliner over the Niger desert in 1989 that were carried out by Libyan agents.
The move to sign up to the MTCR “reassures international organizations and the countries which helped us get rid our WMD programs and was taken as part of American-Libyan cooperation,” Zouay said.
Washington praised the move. “Libya’s renunciation of military relationship with such proliferators is an important step forward,” the US undersecretary of state and arms control John Bolton said in Washington on Thursday.
US-Libyan ties have improved dramatically since Tripoli’s renunciation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, with US diplomats now present in the Libyan capital for the first time in more than 20 years.
US President George W. Bush also eased economic sanctions against the former rogue state country in April, but has yet to remove it from its blacklist of terrorism sponsors. However, Zouay and the Foreign Ministry both refused to name specific countries covered by its commitment to the MTCR, likely for fear of overtly offending its Arab neighbors.
“The Libyan statement was clear, it cited no country and was not aimed at Syria,” the ministry said. “Tripoli cannot say that Syria has WMD since it is a peaceful country whose land is occupied and is threatened by Israel,” it said in a statement.
