American congressmen prepare to visit Tripoli; Libya cooperates with weapons teams

The US has expressed its satisfaction over the cooperation shown by Libya with the visiting American and British officials which study means of eliminating and destroying banned weapons programs Libya owns.

A senior American official said that weapons experts are currently studying means of dismantling and eliminating the Libyan nuclear weapons plans in the country ,and means of dealing with the Libyans reservoirs of mustard gas, noting that he is receiving full cooperation from the Libyan officials.

The delegation includes 12 to 15 American and British weapons experts who arrived in Libya last Sunday.

The American official who asked to be anonymous added that the Libyans are collaborative and the matter is left "from day to day and nobody so far violated anything." The visit of the American- British delegation comes after exploration visits held by intelligence officials in October and December 2003 during which they inspected the Libyan weapons programs.

For his part, the secretary of the people's committee for foreign relations and international cooperations in Libya, Abdul Rahman Shalqam, described the praise expressed by the US President George W. Bush of Libya's decision to give up its armament programs voluntarily as positive.

In an initiative on the improvement of relations between the two countries, six members of the US congress intends to visit Libya by the beginning of next week in the first visit for the delegation by the beginning of next week, in the first visit for a Congress delegation to the country since the Libyan leader assumed authority 35 years ago.

However, the decision to lift economic sanctions of the American oil companies and resumption of work in Libya which was stopped since the imposition of the sanctions in 1986.