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Egypt dismisses US claim on Libyan chemical arms

CAIRO:Egypt dismissed on Saturday American claims that Libya was building a big chemical weapons plant near Tripoli.

"We have no evidence that there is such a plant in Libya," Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told reporters. "We hope that any problem caused by doubts like those expressed by the U.S. defence secretary would be treated calmly."

Defence Secretary William Perry, who visited Egypt last week, said on Wednesday the United States had hard evidence of a Libyan programme to develop chemical weapons and said it would not rule out military action to stop Tripoli from doing so.

Perry also said he showed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak this evidence and warned him that chemical warfare was as much a threat to regional powers like Egypt as it was to the United States.

But Moussa insisted Egypt had no information to pinpoint the existence of such a plant. "No doubt the presence of such a (programme) would result in intensive talks," he added.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said Arabs have a right to own poison gas and germ warfare weapons to compensate for Israel's possession of advanced weaponry.

Egypt often accuses Israel of having nuclear weapons and has acted as broker between Washington and Tripoli, isolated by a U.N. air embargo imposed for failing to hand over two men accused of bombing a Pan Am airliner over Scotland in 1988.

Central Intelligence Agency director John Deutch testified in the U.S. Congress recently that an underground site which Libya was constructing at Tarhunah, 60 km (35 miles) southeast of Tripoli, was the world's largest chemical weapons plant.

In March 1990 the U.S. issued threats of military action over a Libyan plant at Rabta, which it said was on the verge of producing chemical weapons. Soon afterwards an unexplained fire struck Rabta, forcing the plant to close._Reuter