UN nuclear inspectors were set to visit sites related to Libya's atomic weapons program yesterday as the agency geared up for full-scale inspections in the North African state.

　　Inspectors from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, led by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, arrived in Tripoli on Saturday just over a week after Libya acknowledged trying to develop banned weapons - including atomic arms.

　　One diplomat close to the delegation said he did not know what sites the Libyans would show them, but assumed they would be related to whatever weapons-related activities they had been conducting.

　　The Libyans said they had been working on a pilot scale centrifuge uranium-enrichment program but had not enriched any uranium. Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use as nuclear fuel or in weapons.

　　Libya's Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam said on Saturday Tripoli had never crossed the line from laboratory experiments into making weapons.

　　ElBaradei is expected to stay in Tripoli until today. He is scheduled to meet the deputy prime minister in charge of the nuclear program, the prime minister and, possibly, Libya's leader Muammar Gadhafi.

　　Other IAEA inspectors met the deputy prime minister, Matuq Mohamed Matuq, yesterday. He is also minister for science and research and the head of Libya's nuclear program.

　　Those meeting him included Jacques Baute, head of the IAEA's Iraq Nuclear Verification Office, and Pierre Goldschmidt, IAEA deputy general director and one of the main nuclear inspectors in Iran.

　　Some IAEA officials will stay in Tripoli until Thursday and are expected to be shown "everything they need to see", said a diplomat close to the delegation.

　　ElBaradei said he did not think the North African state had been close to building a bomb.