UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A U.N. official Tuesday urged a global effort to help Libya clean up land mines and other munitions left over from the country's civil war.
Max Dyck, program manager for the U.N.-led Joint Mine Action Coordination Team in Libya, told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York while Libya's transitional government is willing to fund the cleanup, it doesn't have the money now because Libya's overseas assets are still frozen.
"It's (going to) take a while to get their systems up into a stage to be able to accept the funds and to be able to put that through to where it is needed," Dyck said.
"If the nations of the world do not assist the Libyans now in trying to get to grips with this problem, nobody can come back in six months and complain when it winds up in places where they don't want it to. Now is the time to be dealing with it, and now is the time that the world should be helping."
Besides land mines and other explosives, large caches of ammunition and weapons systems were left unsecured as rebels battled to oust Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed Oct. 20.
"There are also quite large security problems … in terms of movements of munitions around the country, the security of the ammunitions and various weapons systems," Dyck said, adding the National Transitional Council is "very aware of the issues" and is "working very closely with us and the various actors in trying to get on top of it."
The U.N. Security Council Monday called on the NTC to act to prevent the proliferation of arms, missiles and related munitions because of the danger they pose, not only in Libya but the region.
