On Wednesday in Vienna, Libya signed the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which empowers the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct snap inspections of all the nation's nuclear facilities. 

A key provision of the NPT's Additional Protocol that allows far more intrusive checks marks the North African country's willingness to submit to unannounced checks on decommissioned reactors, fuel production and enrichment plants, research centers and other suspect locations.

This is testimony to Tripoli's commitment to be clean of all its nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in order to reintegrate itself with the global community.

It is certainly a positive step toward the strengthening of global efforts to thwart the spread and use of nuclear weapons.

The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors also unanimously passed a resolution earlier Wednesday not to seek sanctions on the North African nation. The resolution condemned Libya for its violation of the NPT for more than a decade, while applauding its efforts to remedy the breach by volunteering to dismantle its secret nuclear program under the agency's supervision.

The latest moves are widely viewed as significant fresh steps by Libya -- long branded by the United States as a "rogue state" -- to improve poisoned relations with the US, Britain and other international powers by vowing to ditch efforts to build nuclear warheads and other banned weapons.

Libya's disarmament efforts, which held out the prospect of the end of US sanctions and the return of US oil companies, also mark an about-face for Moammar Khadafy, the country's leader for 34 years, who has been vilified by the United States throughout the last two decades much as Iraqi ex-President Saddam Hussein was in recent years.

Libya has long been a NPT signatory, allowing limited IAEA inspections, but has now for the first time admitted secretly trying to build an atomic bomb -- an activity banned under the 1968 treaty.

Libya was free of broader UN sanctions this year after accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paying billions of dollars in compensation to victims' families in the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Washington, however, left its sanctions in place, accusing Tripoli of seeking biological and chemical arms.

Khadafy's widely praised decision stemmed from a desire to end his country's international isolation, restore diplomatic relations with the United States and attract foreign investment.

In recognition of Libya's effort, US President George W. Bush's administration announced last month it will allow US oil firms to begin negotiating to resume operations in Libya -- long banned under terms of its sanctions.

Exxon Mobil Corp, the largest publicly traded oil company in the world, said on Wednesday it is considering returning after a break of more than 17 years.

As the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery is the consensus of the international community, Libya's move undoubtedly serves the interest of its own people and adds to the security of the rest of the world.

(China Daily March 12, 2004)