STOCKHOLM - Contrary to recent US claims that its war on Iraq forced Libya to give up its nuclear weapons program, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said that diplomacy should be given most of the credit.

"I think the dialogue in Libya started before (the war)," Blix said, speaking in Stockholm at the first meeting of a new international commission on weapons of mass destruction, of which he is chairman.

"If the Iraqi affair injected a concern in Libya and Iran and North Korea... I really don't know," he added. "One could (instead) say that the Libyan case shows that you can through diplomacy and through sanctions and through other means obtain a voluntary renunciation of weapons."

Blix's comments were sparked by US President George W. Bush's claims last week that the war in Iraq forced Libya to suddenly announce late last year that it was giving up its nuclear weapons program.

"Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not," Bush said in his annual State of the Union speech to the US Congress.

Blix, a former Swedish diplomat who was charged with searching for weapons of mass destruction in the 15 weeks leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq, was assigned to lead the new Swedish-financed commission on WMD last year.

The independent commission, funded by Sweden and made up of 15 members from 15 different countries, will work through 2005 on finding ways of limiting the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as on ways of disarming countries that already have such weapons.

© 2004 AFP

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