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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has completed its first-ever inspections of Libya's nuclear sites and is satisfied with the cooperation Libya provided during these checks, an IAEA spokesman said on Friday.
The IAEA inspection team, which returned from Libya to IAEA headquarters here Thursday, had inspected nine of the 10 military-related nuclear facilities in the North African country, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said.
Libya provided "complete and sufficient" cooperation during the team's inspections, the spokesman said.
The one site left unchecked this time is a uranium storage facility and has been included in plans for a second inspection mission of the UN nuclear watchdog, Gwozdecky added.
The IAEA will study the findings of the inspections and has not yet made any conclusions on Libya's nuclear arms program, Gwozdecky said.
Diplomats here said the IAEA has reached an understanding with the United States on differences over inspections in Libya. US Secretary of State Colin Powell and IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei agreed in telephone talks to resolve the differences through diplomatic means.
The United States has insisted it take a leading role in inspecting Libya's nuclear sites.
ElBaradei, who concluded his two-day visit to Libya on Dec. 29, 2003, headed an IAEA experts team to visit four nuclear sites around the Libyan capital Tripoli. He also met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
A senior US government official said late last month that the United States will send its own inspectors to Libya in January to work with British experts in dismantling Libya's nuclear arms program, but ElBaradei has said the IAEA intends to "do it alone."
(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2004)
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