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Libya has joined some 100 countries that have ratified the nuclear test ban treaty as it continues to make overtures to the international community only weeks after abandoning efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, a senior official said Wednesday. "Libya ratified the treaty on January 6 by handing in the instruments of ratification to the UN secretary general in New York," said Wolfgang Hoffmann, executive secretary of the Vienna-based preparatory commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty organization (CTBTO). "I have the feeling that the Libyans are doing everything they can to come back into the fold of the world community," Hoffmann said. The 1996 test ban treaty has been signed by 170 states but, now with Libya, has been ratified by 109. The treaty commits countries who have ratified it to refrain from any kind of nuclear weapons testing. But the treaty appears likely to collapse as all the countries with nuclear capabilities must ratify it in order for it to come into force. The United States has indicated that it has no plans to ratify it. Hoffmann said Libya would allow a nuclear monitoring station to be built on its territory, at Misratah. The radiation-measuring station can detect "these little particles that happen when a nuclear or reactor explosion takes place," he said. Hoffmann said that under the test ban treaty, a worldwide network of 321 monitoring stations, plus 16 laboratories, was being set up with only about 150 stations installed so far. Asked what else Libya had to do, Hoffman said: "They should pay their contributions," as Libya is in arrears since signing the test ban treaty in November 2001. Libya's latest step to end its diplomatic isolation comes after Tripoli signed on January 9 a deal in Paris offering 170 million dollars (133 million euros) in compensation for the bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara in Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has also concluded a compensation deal for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing over Scotland and last month vowed to abandon all programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction. A UN embargo on Tripoli was lifted in September after the Lockerbie deal, but the United States maintains unilateral sanctions and President George W. Bush has said they would not be lifted until Libya takes "concrete steps" to prove its good faith. Meanwhile, a stumbling-block to full normalisation of European Union ties with Libya is the 1986 bombing of the La Belle discotheque in what was then West Berlin, in which three people died. Libya has promised compensation, but the German government says it wants further steps. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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