00:37 GMT+3 - #Libya Canada's foreign minister John Baird said Friday his country was prepared to help Libya's new authorities ensure their stockpiles of weapons were not going to fall into the "wrong hands."

The North African country under strongman Muammar Gaddafi, now a fugitive, had accumulated "significant stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemical weapons that have been secure for a number of years," Baird told public broadcaster CBC.

A key concern, he said, was to ensure "the weapons of mass destruction are safeguarded and don't get into the wrong hands."

Canada, he added, was ready to work with Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) and assist in efforts to craft a new constitution Baird also said all held funds should be unfrozen by Western nations and the United Nations for the new Libyan authorities to get their country up and running: "we're urging them to do it as expeditiously as possible," he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday said there would be an immediate end to Canadian sanctions imposed on Libya earlier this year under Gaddafi's rule.

Harper at the "friends of Libya" conference in Paris said Ottawa was repealing the sanctions "in support of the Libyan people and the new governing authorities." - AFP

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