Rice hails historic Libya visit

[Woodmonkey]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Libya on Friday for a landmark meeting with its veteran leader Moamer Kadhafi, hailing Washington's reconciliation with the former enemy state.

Rice described her visit, the first by a US secretary of state in more than half a century to the one-time international pariah, as "historic."

"Now that is not to say that everything has by any means been settled between the United States and Libya. There is a long way to go," she told travelling reporters on the plane.

"But I do believe that it has demonstrated that the United States doesn't have permanent enemies. It demonstrates that when countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction the United States is prepared to respond."

Diplomats said Rice was eager to show Iran and North Korea they could benefit from rapprochement with the West, highlighting Libya's commitment to abandon nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.

"This (visit) came out of the historic decision that Libya made to give up its weapons of mass destruction and to renounce terrorism, the important role that Libya can play and does play in the Maghreb, in the African Union," she told reporters during a Lisbon stopover.

Rice was holding talks with Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Mohammed Shalgam before joining Kadhafi for Iftar -- the meal marking the end of the day's Ramadan fast.

"I look forward to listening to the leader's world view," she said of the mercurial Kadhafi who has led the oil-rich nation for almost four decades.

She said oil was a factor for her visit given Libya's vast reserves of oil and gas, adding that conflicts in Sudan and Chad could also be raised and possibly military cooperation.

The visit marks the full renewal of relations with Libya, which were suspended in 1981 when the United States put Kadhafi's regime on its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Libya, whose leader was once dubbed a "mad dog" by former US president Ronald Reagan, was forced even further into isolation after the bombing of a US airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.

The White House said Rice's visit marked a "new chapter."

"By improving our relations with Libya, we will enable expansion of bilateral cooperation in a number of areas, including education and culture, commerce, science and technology, and most certainly security and human rights," said Dana Perino, President George W. Bush's press secretary.

The last US secretary of state to visit was John Foster Dulles in 1953, who met King Idris -- the ruler ousted in a bloodless military coup led by Kadhafi in 1969.

Richard Nixon, who visited Libya in 1957 when he was vice president, was the last top-ranking US official to make the trip.

Kadhafi dramatically announced in December 2003 that his country was renouncing weapons of mass destruction and a nuclear programme following secret talks with the United States and Britain.

The move saw the Arab world's longest-serving leader gradually emerge from years of international isolation and since then he has held talks with a number of world leaders.

Last Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi travelled to Libya and formally apologised for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era and signed a five-billion-dollar investment deal by way of compensation.

The Libyan leader -- he eschews the title president and prefers to be known as "brother leader and guide of the revolution" -- welcomed the end of his regime's long estrangement from Washington.

"The whole business of the conflict between Libya and the United States has been closed once and for all," he said this week. "There will be no more wars, raids or acts of terrorism."

But he also stressed that Libya was not desperate for US friendship, saying: "All we want is to be left alone."

Rice's visit comes less than a month after the two governments reached an agreement on a plan to compensate US victims of Libyan attacks and Libyan victims of US reprisals.

The deal focused on the families of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing as well as victims of US air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986 in which 41 people were killed, including Kadhafi's adopted daughter.

The US-based Carnegie Endowment think-tank warned Washington against falling into business-as-usual relations with Libya.

"The regime remains opaque, unpredictable, and, buoyed by its petroleum wealth, is increasingly assertive in international negotiations."

The Source