AlHijjah 6, 1432, Nov 2, 2011, SPA -- The United Nations will send experts to Libya to help ensure nuclear material and chemical weapons do not fall into the wrong hands, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday on his first visit to Tripoli since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Reuters reported. Ban also offered technical support in the transition to democracy and called on the new authorities to ensure that perpetrators of human rights abuses are punished. "The former regime under Gaddafi has reported to the relevant United Nations organisations on nuclear materials, as well as chemical weapons," Ban told reporters during an afternoon visit to the coastal capital. He said he had raised the issues with Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) "so that these materials will be securely controlled. It is very important that all these materials, very carefully and without fail, be secured." Experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency would visit Libya, Ban added. Gaddafi publicly renounced Libya's nuclear and chemical weapons programmes in the last decade as part of a move to restore ties with the United States, Britain and other Western states. But Libya still had nuclear material for research purposes and may have had chemical weapons stockpiles. World leaders agreed to unblock $15 billion to help the new government restore vital services after Gaddafi's overthrow, but Libya's Finance Ministry said just a third of Libya's assets have been unfrozen. Ban also offered U.N. help for "elections, a new constitution, human rights, public security and the control of weapons." -- SPA
