Libya: European Commission President Prodi Boosts Gaddafi's Rehabilitation in West
By Douglas Hamilton
CAIRO (Reuters) April 3 - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took another major step toward rehabilitation in the West Monday when he met European Commission President Romano Prodi and attended an Africa-Europe summit.
Gaddafi also had two meetings in 12 hours with Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, the first Western leader to visit Tripoli after Libya last year handed over two agents suspected of bombing a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
Libya was a pariah in the West for more than a decade. It was subject to United Nations sanctions, suspended after the two Lockerbie suspects were extradited a year ago this week to stand trial in a Scottish court specially created in the Netherlands.
Prodi's spokesman, Riccardo Levi, said the Commission president and the Libyan leader had a one-hour meeting at a Cairo hotel shortly before the start of the first EU-Africa summit conference.
In Brussels, a Commission spokesman quoted Prodi as saying that he felt ``completely vindicated' by the improvement in Western relations with Libya since he issued a controversial invitation to Gaddafi in December, angering several member states.
Prodi said his Cairo meeting was no substitute for an eventual invitation to Brussels, a move criticized by some European leaders at the time as premature and put on ice.
The EU wants Libya to accept officially that Israel and the Palestinian Authority are entitled to participate fully in an EU-Mediterranean dialogue known as the ``Barcelona Process,' and to undertake not to block the Middle East peace process.
A British official said last week any bilateral EU meeting with Gaddafi would be premature until it made that commitment.
The United States also took a first step toward restoring ties with Libya 10 days ago, sending a consular delegation to Tripoli to study whether it was now safe for Americans to visit the North African oil- and gas-producing state.
Milking his Cairo appearance for maximum political and diplomatic gain, Gaddafi received D'Alema after midnight in a sumptuous tent erected in the garden of a presidential guest house.
``The Americans made a smart move. They sent this delegation after long years of boycott and the rise of oil prices,' Gaddafi told reporters in his brightly patterned tent.
He said Washington wanted ``a good initiative toward Libya' so that it would not block oil production increases, and added that he expected good relations to develop.
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