Libya, U.S., Britain Meet on Lockerbie Sanctions
Xinhua, March 20
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20, 2001 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan U.N. ambassador has said that he believed Britain and the United States were acting in good faith in talks aimed at spelling out how Libya can end U.N. sanctions imposed after the 1988 bombing of Pan American flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, U.N. officials said here Tuesday.
Abuzed Omar Dorda, the Libyan permanent representative to the United Nations, made the statement Monday after his latest meeting with U.S. ambassador James Cunningham and James Greenstock, the British permanent representative to the United Nations.
"Every day, we do understand each other much better," Dorda said in response to a press question.
The two were acting in "very good faith," Dorda said. "Knowing each other leads to the necessary confidence."
The three ambassadors have met twice since Scottish judges on January 31 convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan national, in the Pan Am bombing, in which 270 people were killed, most of them Americans.
A second Libyan, Al-Amin Khalfa Fahima, was acquitted by the court, which sat in the Netherlands. Al-Megrahi is appealing his conviction.
The U.N. sanctions, including an air and arms embargo and a ban on some oil equipment, were imposed by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council in 1992 and 1993 and suspended when Libya handed over the two men for trial in April 1999.
Libya wants the matter closed and sanctions lifted. Washington and London have boiled down a series of council resolutions to two demands before the sanctions can be lifted fully -- an acceptance of responsibility by Libya for the bombing and the payment of "appropriate" compensation to the victims' families. Other requirements have either been fulfilled or quietly dropped.
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Britain, Libya restore full diplomatic ties
LONDON, March 20 (UPI) -- Britain and Libya restored full diplomatic relations Tuesday, 17 years after ties were severed over the death of a London policewoman from gunfire which appeared to come from the Libyan embassy.
Mohammed Abdul Quasim al-Zwai, a former Libyan justice minister, presented his credentials as the new ambassador to Queen Elizabeth II, ending a diplomatic schism that deepened over the Anglo-American bombing of Libya in 1986 and the destruction of Pan-Am flight 103 over Scotland two years later.
Until now, Libya had been represented in London by a charge d'affaires.
Al-Zwai went to see the British monarch at Buckingham Palace in the traditional procession of three horse-drawn carriages. The palace is less than two miles from the old Libyan embassy, where relations between London and Tripoli were shattered in 1984 in a hail of gunfire that left Police Officer Yvonne Fletcher dead.
Fletcher was on duty at a demonstration against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on the street outside when bullets were fired, apparently from the embassy premises. At the time, Libya denied any complicity in the policewoman's death.
Relations between London and Tripoli further declined two years later, when American warplanes operating from British soil bombed Tripoli in retaliation for Libya's alleged sponsorship of international terrorism.
They worsened in December 1988, when Pan-Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland --- killing 270 people. Washington and London said the bombing was carried out by Libyan agents.
Efforts to mend the diplomatic break began two years ago, when British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced that, finally, Libya "accepts general responsibility for the actions of those with the Libyan embassy at the time of the shooting" of Yvonne Fletcher.
Gadhafi had already handed over two Libyans whom London and Washington blamed for the Lockerbie tragedy.
Diplomatic sources said these moves by Libya -- culminating in the conviction of one of the accused Libyans in a trial in the Netherlands fulfilled conditions laid down by Britain, and opened the door for the resumption of full diplomatic ties. |
