During his visit to Libya 23-24 February 2004, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei briefed members of the international press corps on the IAEA's verification of Libya's nuclear programme.
Following are excerpts from an unofficial transcript of the interviews.
Overall Progress
"We have discussed in detail where we are, what is needed to be done. We agree that we will make every effort to come to closure, hopefully by June... Overall I think it is going very smoothly, very well and I affirmed again (the importance of) their full cooperation, the readiness to answer all questions we have and to satisfy all technical requirements.
Nuclear Supply Network
"We are still understanding the network, we are still trying to see whether other countries have received the technology, have received the weapon design, this is obviously a matter of importance... an area concern for us, so we are putting the pieces of the puzzle together and trying to understand whether there is any additonal work cut out for us in the future.
I think Libya has been very forthcoming on this but again we are getting more information. We are getting more details, getting names of more individuals, more companies, so it is helpful to get all this information from different sources, and we are getting it."
Nuclear Transparency & Cooperation
"A very important message is that the more transparent you are, the easier we can complete our job, the easier we can come to conclusion about the nature of the programme. What I preach everywhere I go is full transparency, full cooperation, because in a country which had been running an undeclared programme you need maximum transparency and maximum cooperation. Libya is good example so far on this score.
"We are getting good information from many different countries."