Wikileaks’ Libya nuclear threat ‘not yet verified’ – government

Wikileaks’ Libya nuclear threat ‘not yet verified’ – government
Mark Micallef


Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is said to have been humiliated during a trip to New York. Photo: AFP
The Foreign Ministry yesterday brushed off the latest Wikileak revelation in which Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi is said to have risked a spill of highly enriched uranium late last year in retaliation for being “humiliated” during a trip to New York.

“The ministry cannot comment on facts that have not yet been verified,” a spokesman for the ministry said.

The leaked cables, published yesterday, claim that Libyan authorities purposely delayed delivery to Russia of a consignment of spent nuclear fuel, which was left on the tarmac of the Tajura nuclear facility, 14 km east of Tripoli, with a single armed guard for almost a month.

The highly enriched uranium, which can be developed and used in a bomb, was meant to be collected in November last year by a heavy transport aircraft, as part of an international deal under which Libya’s nuclear waste is handled and disposed of by Russia.

However, the aircraft was sent back without the cargo because Mr Gaddafi had taken offence at his treatment during his visit to New York to address the UN two months earlier, according to the author of the cable, US ambassador to Tripoli Gene Cretz.

Mr Gaddafi had felt “humiliated” after he was prevented from pitching his Bedouin tent in New York and from visiting the Ground Zero site of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mr Cretz reports in the cable.

US and Russian diplomats scrambled to resolve the crisis since the uranium containers were only intended for transport not storage, meaning they could start leaking in as little as a month. The aircraft eventually left Libya on December 21.

However, the Maltese government yesterday was unwilling to say if it will ask Libya for more information.

Labour’s environment spokes­man, Leo Brincat, who as party foreign affairs spokesman in 2008 was not against France’s plan to sell Libya a nuclear-powered desalination plant, was also cautious. However, he said neighbour states should be given guarantees about nuclear safety.

“Whether the Maltese government had sought and obtained such guarantees remains a big mystery so far, particularly in the absence of adherence to certain established international conventions,” he said.

Mr Brincat expressed concern, especially in the wake of an accident at a nuclear reactor in the south of France in 2008, which reopened the debate on the safety of nuclearising the Mediterranean.

However, he stood by the stand taken in 2008, when he said that Libya should not be discriminated against if it wanted to develop civilian nuclear power plants, on the lines of those in Europe.

AD spokesman Arnold Cassola was not so guarded. “This is further confirmation of the irresponsibility of the Gaddafi administration which doesn’t think twice before blackmailing people,” he said, referring to last week’s warning by the Libyan leader to the EU that Libya would no longer block migration to Europe unless it was paid €5 billion a year.

“Of course, the Maltese should react extremely strongly to this. Beyond nuclear security considerations, nobody seems to realise that we extract 60 per cent of our water from the Mediterranean sea around us. If there is this irresponsibility concerning one of the most dangerous toxic substances like uranium which is left unguarded and which can be abused... then the Maltese people will have a problem with their daily survival.”

He insisted the government should take a strong stand and berated both the Nationalist and Labour parties for their consensual silence when it comes to crises with Libya.

“This silence is probably prompted by economic inte­rests but if any accident happens in this area, the economic interests will be of little help. So, one has to be polite but firm rather than pretend that nothing is happening,” he said.