VIENNA, January 19 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The United States agreed that the U.N. nuclear watchdog will oversee the disarmament of Libya's nuclear program, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said following talks Monday, January 19.

Mohamed ElBaradei, diplomats said, wanted assurances the U.N. agency, shut out of Iraq by the United States and out of North Korea after Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2002, would not be turned away from verifying Libya's nuclear programs, according to Reuters.

"I think we have agreement on what needs to be done. Clearly the agency role is very clear that we need to do the verification," ElBaradei was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

He was speaking following talks with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Nuclear Proliferation John Bolton and British envoy William Ehrman.

The United States and Britain will provide logistical support to the inspection missions carried out by the IAEA teams, he added.

The meeting came amid a turf battle over who should take the leading role in verifying that Libya is making good on its promise to give up nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

IAEA, U.S. and British weapons inspectors have all been to Libya since Tripoli announced the shift in mid-December, following months of secret negotiations between Tripoli, London and Washington.

The U.S. administration of George W. Bush had accused the IAEA of rushing into Libya, suggesting that Washington wants its own inspectors to play a larger role in verifying Libya's disarmament.

But ElBaradei said that "obviously we do the verification, to make sure that we have seen everything in Libya" and that all weapons programs have been declared.

Then the IAEA will need help with moving weapons equipment out of Libya or destroying it, he had added.

"Clearly we will need American and British support with logistics," ElBaradei said.

"I think the meeting was (aimed at) trying to agree and coordinate our activities both for verification and logistical support," ElBaradei said.

"I think we have reached a good agreement on how to proceed," he said, adding that consultations would continue.

Bolton did not confirm the specifics of what Elbaradei said, only saying that it was "a very productive meeting. I think we are on the same page with the IAEA".

ElBaradei said: "We are trying to move fast. It is important we move fast".

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said last week that the IAEA was the international community's sole institution mandated to inspect nuclear programs.

The IAEA gets its mandate to verify non-proliferation worldwide from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"The agency's verification responsibilities under the NPT are clear," Gwozdecky said.

A Vienna-based diplomat said there were "hurt feelings" at the IAEA when the United States and Britain surprised the world, and the agency, with the agreement they won December 19 from Tripoli to abandon biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

The New York Times in December quoted a senior U.S. official who called ElBaradei's visit to Libya shortly after the agreement "a badly advised public relations exercise at a time when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's MI6 spy agency were developing strong bonds with Libya's military and intelligence chiefs."

He added that ElBaradei "has (only) got a minuscule percentage of the knowledge" about the full assortment of Libya's illicit weapons programs.

But ElBaradei said the IAEA was "getting lots of good information" from the United States and Britain as well as its own inspection teams.

He said new IAEA teams would be visiting Libya "over the next 10 days."

Meanwhile, the United States, which has not had an Embassy in Libya since the 1980s, is considering setting up an office there to give U.S. inspectors there logistical, technical and secretarial support.