IAEA Team Inspects Uranium Storage Site South Libya

A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
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IAEA Team Inspects Uranium Storage Site South Libya

A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
A cleaning staff works before a news conference attended by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Austria, September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived Tuesday in southern Libya to inspect a natural uranium storage site containing 6,400 barrels, Fawasel media reported.

The site said the IAEA team arrived in Sabha airport in southern Libya coming from Vienna.

“The team left Libya after completing the inspection process for the uranium in Libya,” Fawasel said, adding that the UN inspectors also visited many other sites in the south.

Last week, Gen Khaled al-Mahjoub, head of a media unit for the Libyan National Army, the main eastern military force, said that a military team had found 2.5 tons of radioactive uranium.

His comments came after the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, told the organization’s member states that inspectors had found that 10 drums containing approximately 2.5 tons of uranium ore concentrate “were not present as previously declared”.

The Libyan General said 10 missing barrels had been recovered about 5 km from the warehouse, near the border with Chad.

Mahjoub suggested that they were stolen by Chadian forces who mistook them for ammunition or weapons, then abandoned them when they realized the drums were of little use.

He said the Chadian forces raided the warehouse and may have taken the barrels hoping they contained weapons or ammunition.



France Declines to Comment on Algeria’s Anger over Recognition of Morocco’s Claim over Sahara

French President Emmanuel Macron and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP file)
French President Emmanuel Macron and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP file)
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France Declines to Comment on Algeria’s Anger over Recognition of Morocco’s Claim over Sahara

French President Emmanuel Macron and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP file)
French President Emmanuel Macron and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP file)

Paris declined to comment on Algeria’s “strong condemnation” of the French government’s decision to recognize Morocco’s claim over the Sahara.

The office of the French Foreign Ministry refused to respond to an AFP request for a comment on the Algeria’s stance.

It did say that further comments could impact the trip Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is set to make to France in late September or early October.

The visit has been postponed on numerous occasions over disagreements between the two countries.

France had explicitly expressed its constant and clear support for the autonomy rule proposal over the Sahara during Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne’s visit to Morocco in February, reported AFP.

The position has helped improve ties between Rabat and Paris.

On Thursday, the Algerian Foreign Ministry expressed “great regret and strong denunciation" about the French government's decision to recognize an autonomy plan for the Western Sahara region "within Moroccan sovereignty”.

Algeria was informed of the decision by France in recent days, an Algerian foreign ministry statement added.

The ministry also said Algeria would draw all the consequences from the decision and hold the French government alone completely responsible.