Libya has formally ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the United Nations agency overseeing the agreement said in Vienna Wednesday.  

Libya ratified the treaty on Jan. 6, and had become the 109th among the 170 countries which signed the treaty to formally ratify it, the Vienna-based Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Organization said.

The agency said Libya had agreed to set up a monitoring station in Misratah, northern Libya, to be part of a worldwide network of 337 stations to monitor nuclear tests and collect information for the agency's database in Vienna.

Libya signed the nuclear test ban treaty on Nov. 13, 2001, and announced on Dec. 19, 2003, that it would give up programs in developing weapons of mass destruction.

The country also sent letters to the United Nations Security Council saying it would accept the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and other international disarmament treaties in 2003.

After inspections of part of Libya's nuclear facilities in 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he was satisfied with the work Libya had done.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, passed by the UN General Conference in Sept. 1996, stipulates that countries which ratify the treaty should gradually cut down and finally finish with nuclear weapons.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2004)