Kadhafi: We’re out until there are guarantees of effective Arab action against the dangers facing the Arab world

TRIPOLI, December 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi insisted on Wednesday, December 25, that he still planned to pull his nation out of the 22-member Arab League.

Libya will keep to its decision, announced two months ago, “as long as the League charter is not re-activated and respected in a way that guarantees effective Arab action against the dangers facing the Arab world,” he said, quoted by the official Jana news agency.

Libya’s minister for African Unity, Ali Abdel Salam Triki, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) earlier he had informed League chief Amr Mussa on Monday, December 23, that Tripoli would pull out “due to the continuing situation of deterioration in the Arab world.”

Mussa visited Tripoli briefly on Monday in a last-ditch effort to keep Libya from bolting the League.

Libya announced on October 24 that it wanted to quit the organization for failing to do much to stop Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians and U.S. threats of war against Iraq.

Meanwhile, Libya on Wednesday rejected claims by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Iraqi experts are working in its nuclear industry, the official Jana news agency reported.

“We reject the lies that he is in the habit of putting forth,” it quoted Hassuna al-Shawesh, an under secretary of the foreign ministry, as saying.

Libya rejects “the lies that he [Sharon] is in the habit of putting forth.”

“Today it’s clear to the entire world that the goal of this terrorist (Sharon) when he spreads such lies is to hide Israel’s enormous nuclear capability,” he said.

Shawesh stressed that Libya, unlike the Jewish state, is a signatory of the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty, AFP said.

Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear program although experts estimate it has more than 200 nuclear warheads.

Sharon on Tuesday, December 24, claimed he had information that Iraq had passed non-conventional weapons to Syria and that Iraqi scientists were working with Libya’s nuclear industry.

Syria has rejected the charge as groundless. Damascus said Wednesday, December 25 that accusations by Sharon that Iraq had allegedly transferred weapons of mass destruction to neighboring Syria were ridiculous, unfounded and were aimed at diverting the world’s attention from Israel's weapons' arsenal.

“Sharon’s allegations are unfounded and aim to divert attention from the chemical, nuclear and biological arsenal that Israel possesses,” a Syrian foreign ministry spokesman said, according to AFP.

“The accusations are ridiculous, especially since Syria has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and called along with the other Arab countries for the Middle East to be freed from all weapons of mass destruction,” he added, quoted by the official news agency SANA.