UNITED NATIONS: A UN nuclear team will visit Libya this month to assess the safety of thousands of barrels of milled uranium — known as yellowcake — amid concerns about the country’s deteriorating security situation, a UN official said yesterday.
“With respect to yellowcake, we have received information indicating that 6,400 barrels are stored in a non-functional former military facility close to Sabha in the south,” UN Libya envoy Tarek Mitri told the Security Council.
“They are under control of a Libyan army battalion,” Mitri told the 15-nation council. An inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit this month to verify the stockpiles and storage conditions, he said.
Security Council diplomats said Russia has repeatedly voiced concerns about the Libyan uranium during council discussions on Libya. Moscow has strongly criticized the 2011 Nato intervention in Libya to protect civilians, which led to the ouster of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The Vienna-based IAEA confirmed two years ago towards the end of the country’s half-year civil war that Libya’s previous government had stored raw uranium near Sabha. An agency spokeswoman said at the time the IAEA would begin to implement agency safeguards there once the situation in Libya stabilised.reuters
