The World - News from Oct. 27, 1988

Japan has told the United States that Japanese firms “intend no further involvement” in an industrial plant project in Libya because of the plant’s “proximity” to a huge chemical weapons plant under construction southeast of Tripoli, the State Department said. Earlier reports had indicated that a Japanese firm had helped to build the chemical plant and that the United States had expressed its concern to Japan about this. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the United States has no information indicating that Japanese firms were ever involved either in Libyan production of chemical warfare agents or in the construction of the chemical plant.