21/08/1998 BBCThe UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has signalled he wants an all-Scottish panel of judges to hear any trial of the two Lockerbie suspects - amid new hopes that a decision on the trial may be near. Mr Blair's suggestion was described as "discouraging" by campaigners, who had earlier received encouragement from former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Steel that agreement on a trial was imminent.
The UK Government is currently involved in discussions with the US and Dutch over whether it would be possible to try the suspects before a Scottish court sitting at a neutral venue in The Netherlands. The negotiations are a clear change from the UK and US governments' previous demand that it take place on British or American soil, offering a compromise to Libya 10 years after the bombing, which killed 270 people when Pan Am flight 103 exploded in 1988.
The signal that the government wants an exclusively Scottish panel to hear the case - rather than a Scottish judge with international jurists - came in a letter from Mr Blair to the Labour MP for Linlithgow, Tam Dalyell. Mr Dalyell, who has taken a close interest in the bombing, fears the move could be a set-back to the delicate negotiations. He said: "I'm dismayed by this letter.
"I don't think that five Scottish judges was ever acceptable and I fear that the west will make the excuse that the Libyans won't come. "There are people in the west for whom the last thing they want is a trial that will expose thepoverty of their evidence." In the letter dated 15 August, Mr Blair said the government was determined to make progress over Lockerbie and hoped it would reach a decision on the neutral venue soon. But he said: "We are contemplating trial before Scottish judges, rather than an international panel."
The Libyans had made it clear they had no objection to Scottish judges, he added. But Mr Dalyell said the Libyans' understanding was that the trial would involve a Scottish judge presiding over a panel of four judges from other countries.
Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the campaigning group UK Families - Flight 103, described the letter as "discouraging", but said he remained confident that a trial would happen. He said: "I'm feeling optimistic, now that all three countries are discussing a neutral country trial."
Read more about this topic in THE SCOTSMAN 21/08/1998
20/08/1998 BBC There is growing speculation that the UK Government is about to announce it is ready to agree to an international trial of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing. It is almost 10 years since Pan Am Flight 103 came down over the Scottish town, killing 270 people, and pressure for action has been growing for years.
The likely venue (i.e. place) for a trial is The Hague, a clear change from the UK and US Governments' previous demand that it take place on British or American soil. A senior British politician has predicted that a decision about the trial may be imminent.
Lord Steel, formerly a Scottish MP and leader of the Liberal Democrats told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the reasons for the change of heart on both sides of the Atlantic were simple. "It's now nearly 10 years since the Lockerbie disaster and we're nowhere nearer the truth of what happened. "There is a general desire, particularly on behalf of the relatives who were killed to secure a trial, and therefore a trial in some international venue is a possibility."
Last month UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said a compromise was being worked on, although Foreign Office minister Tony Lloyd told the Commons no decisions had yet been taken. There are complex legal arguments to be settled such as whether the panel of judges should be international, or simply drawn from the Scottish legal system. Lord Steel admitted that these details had yet to be agreed, but believed the idea of an international trial was gaining increasing acceptance. He said a lot had now changed: "Remember also at the time of the disaster there was no such thing as an international trial. "Now we have in principal agreement on setting up an international court and we already have international tribunals on Bosnia and Rwanda."
Meanwhile a major British firm has admitted preparing for the lifting of the UN sanctions against Libya which have been in place since the bombing. British Aerospace PLC has been holding preliminary talks on rebuilding the country's civil aviation structure. Lord Steel said it was entirely understandable that the firm should be prepared for the future. "I hope they're not thinking of military re-equipment. I think the reports are about the re-creation of the civil aviation potential.
"I think that's only wise because if we don't there will other people already in there waiting for sanctions to be lifted and hoping to snap up the contracts."
Listen to Lord Steele about the reasons for the UK change of mind (You need Real Player 5.0 to listen to this file)
8/11/98 Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdul Meguid, sent two messages to the head of the UN Security Council, Sergei Lavrov, and to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in which he asks for the sanctions imposed on Libya to be lifted.
Abdul Meguid said that the Security Council should accept one of the suggestions presented by the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Diplomatic source from the Arabian seven-fold committee concerned with the Lockerbie crisis told ArabicNews.com that Abdul Meguid's message to the Security Council chairman called either for immediate lifting of the sanctions or to suspension of the sanctions until the Intentional Court of Justice issues a judgment in the Lockerbie case.
Recently, the International Court of Justice ruled that it has jurisdiction to hear the case of sanctions imposed on Libya due to the Lockerbie incident, as Libya has asserted all along. But more recently the US and Britain who sought the extradition of two accused Libyans agreed to have the trial in a neutral country. The outstanding problems relate to the trial itself (Judicial composition and extra-territorial law modification by some countries involved to allow for external trials), and the sanctions that are currently in effect against Libya.
Abdul Meguid's message asserts that as long as the guilt of Libya has not been established, then the sanctions should be removed or suspended.
August 8th 1998 The BBC has broadcast an interview with the former MI5 officier David Shayler in which he spoke about an alleged plot by the UK's Secret Intelligence Service to kill Libyan revolutionary leader Colonel Gaddafi.
If the plot is real, this could jeopardise moves to try two Libyan men accused of the Lockerbie airline bombing, which killed nearly 300 people in 1988. An announcement is imminent over whether, after years of negotiations, Libya will hand over the suspects for trial in a neutral country.
Mr Shayler said he was not worried about the effect his allegations would have on the case because having seen the intelligence reports he said there was no chance of the two being handed over.
But Dr Jim Swire, campaigning for the Lockerbie relatives, said: "It is now over 500 weeks since my daughter was murdered at Lockerbie and this week the head of the Arab League is discussing a neutral country trial under Scottish law with Gaddafi in Tripoli and the last thing we wanted were allegations that British organisations had been trying to kill him."
8/7/98 The Arab League is awaiting official positions from the U.S. and Britain on ways of resolving the long-running Lockerbie issue, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday quoting a press statement issued by the Cairo-based organization.
Abdul Meguid said Tripoli held on to its position to settle the issue in accordance with a proposal put forward by the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement. The proposal asked for a trial of the Libyan suspects in a third and neutral country. The statement said that Abdul Meguid, who was to leave Libya later Thursday, met with Gaddafi and other leading Libyan officials.
"The visit is designed to express Arab solidarity with Libya in its conflict with the West and to affirm the need to lift sanctions imposed on the country," the statement said, adding that the visit is also meant "to stress that the continued embargo on Libya will push Arab nations to look into possible alternatives to stave off more damage to the Libyan people."
Washington and London last month agreed to allow them to stand trial in the Netherlands before Scottish judges. A key stumbling block now lies in the Anglo-American insistence that all the judges must be Scots, while the defense counsel wants a multi-national bench. The Arab League is supporting Libya's stance and in a recent meeting in Cairo, the league Council said Libya is entitled to claim damages caused by the unfair sanctions.
Meguid held talks earlier this year in London with British Foreign Minister Robin Cook on the Lockerbie dispute, and has conferred in Cairo with a delegation of the relatives of the bombing victims. The Anglo-American turnabout is seen as having been prodded by the increasing international support for the Libyan position.
8/5/98 Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdul Meguid stated that the Libyan position concerning the Lockerbie incident is based on the principles of international law and justice.
He expressed satisfaction over the recent stances proclaimed by the US and Britain towards the crisis as the two countries are being convinced to restore relations to normal with Libya. In a statement he made on Tuesday to Monte Carlo radio during his visit to Libya, Abdul Meguid described the approval of the US and British sides of the proposal submitted by the AL in that the two Libyans suspected of being involved in the Lockerbie incident should be tried at a neutral site as a positive development.
He stated that the decision taken by the International Court of Justice that the case is not the speciality of the UN Security Council has proven the right Arab and Libyan stance in this respect.
7/31/98 Through its ambassador in Cairo, London informed the Arab League of its approval of Arab proposals to try the two Libyans accused of being involved in Lockerbie case in the Hague according to Scottish law.
Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary-General Esmat Abdul Meguid said he exchanged with the British ambassador viewpoints regarding all matters pertaining to recent developments, foremost being the consent of both the US and Britain to try the two Libyans in a neutral court, namely in the Hague. The British ambassador said legislative procedure is at the core of current discussions between his country, the U.S., and Holland on holding the trial at The Hague.
Meanwhile Abdul Meguid expressed his confidence in Scotland's law and his conviction that a just trial will provide the truth and end the suffering of the victims' families that have sought this trial for a long time.
The AL chief added that the consent of the UK and the US is an important step toward settling the issue of Lockerbie by legal and peaceful means, ending the sanctions imposed on Libya and alleviating the sufferings of the Libyan people as a result of the sanctions imposed since 1992. Libya has been under international sanctions for refusing to hand over the two Libyan suspects in the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people.
On Tuesday, the USA also notified the Arab League of its acceptance that the trial be held by a Scottish court in a neutral country.
London Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic 30 Jul 98 p 4
Cairo, Al-Sharq al-Awsat -- A high-placed Libyan official has announced that numerous legal and political difficulties are obstructing the issue of conducting the trial of the two Libyan nationals (accused by both the United States and Britain of involvement in the Lockerbie incident) in the Netherlands.
The official, who is close to Libyan leader Colonel Mu'ammar al- Qadhdhafi, told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the recent official signals and press reports emanating from the Western parties concerned with the crisis are still shrouded in ambiguity and require time to crystallize into a clear position. The official said that the change in the British and U.S. positions has been both surprising and confusing at the same time, especially as London and Washington have in the past objected to any idea of the two Libyan suspects standing trial in a third country or under a law that is not applied by British and U.S. courts.
Read the full article HERE
7/27/98 The secretary-general of the Arab League [AL], Esmat Abdul Meguid, will visit Libya at the beginning of August to discuss with Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi the US and British soft proposals concerning Lockerbie crisis.
An official at AL headquarters was quoted as saying that "in collaboration with Libya, the AL is drawing an Arab plan to deal with dimensions of the Lockerbie crisis and means of lifting sanctions imposed on Libya in light of the change in the US and UK stances in this respect."
In this context, Abdul Meguid will on August 2 begin a four-day visit to Libya to hold intensive contacts with high-ranking Libyan officials, foremost being with President Gaddafi. Arab League Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs who is in charge of the Lockerbie issue, Mohammad Zakaria Ismail, will deliver a letter from Abdel Meguid to the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan tackling an Arab perception on how to deal with this case.
A League source said that the letter tackles the League's preparation to fully cooperate with the U.N. in order to find a peaceful solution that would guarantee all parties rights and assist in lifting the sanctions imposed on Libya. Last week it was revealed that both London and Washington are poised to accept that the trial could be held in the Hague, a proposal which was made by Libya more than two years ago.
Meanwhile, "The Observer" reports that Libya said it will "never accept" Britain and American plans to try the two suspects in the Netherlands by an all-Scottish judge team, Map reported. The Observer newspaper said that London and Washington insist that Libya must surrender the two men to a court of five Scottish judges. But Tripoli insists only a panel of international judges will guarantee a fair trial, the publication reported. It quoted "a senior figure" close to the Libyan regime as saying that Scottish judges "lack cultural objectivity."
Meanwhile, the Libyan authorities have agreed to allow one senior Scottish judge appointed by Britain and the US to head the judges in the Hague, but insists that the other members come from other countries. But the unnamed source told the Observer "Libya agrees to a trial in a third country but it must be fair. We accept a Scottish Chairman and a Scottish legal procedure, but we do not believe in would be fair if all the judges came from the country in which the crime took place (Scotland)."
Tripoli will demand an immediate end to trade and travel sanctions imposed by the un Security Council, safe passage for the suspects to and from Netherlands, and guarantees that they will be held alone in secure conditions and will not be interrogated about "other alleged crimes."
7/25/98 The British daily the Guardian on Friday reported that UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook will announce on Tuesday Britain's decision to accept the trial of the two Libyans suspected to be involved in explosion of a US passenger plane over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988, according to the Scottish law at The Hague in the Netherlands.
The paper said that Cook will make his announcement in a speech he will read before the UK House of Commons next Tuesday to put an end to ten years of conflict with Libya.The report added that the British government is confident in the possibility of resolving technical issues with the Dutch government on the trial which arose because the proceedings are to be carried out according to the Scottish judicial system.
The report stated that a similar announcement will be made simultaneously by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Washington.
23/07/1998 The Libyan lawyer of the two Libyan suspects wanted in the Lockerbie bombing said on Thursday he would accept U.S. and British proposals for a trial in the Hague under Scottish law and that his clients were ready for that.
Read more about Libyan reactions to the sudden change
July 22, 1998; CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- The Arab League offered Wednesday to handle security and travel for two Libyans suspects if they are tried in The Hague, Netherlands for a 1988 blast that destroyed a Pam Am jet and killed 270 people, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported.
``The League is ready to carry out the necessary measures of handing over the suspects and maintaining their security,'' Mohammed Ismail, the league's assistant secretary-general for political affairs told the Egyptian news agency.
Read more about the sudden change in the Lockerbie Crisis
21/07/1998LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and the United States have reversed their position and agreed that two Libyans accused of blowing up a U.S. airliner over Scotland in 1988 can face trial in The Hague, a British newspaper reported on Tuesday. This would be a total U-turn of previous standpoints.
Read all about the sudden change in the Lockerbie Crisis
Read the two articles from THE GUARDIAN 21/07/1998
7/20/98 Leader of Libya Col. Moammar Gaddafi has received a cable from the president of India, in which the latter voiced solidarity in confronting the sanctions imposed on Libya.
He stressed the need to find a just and fair solution to the Lockerbie crisis, which triggered the sanctions. The Indian president made it clear that the ruling of the International Court of Justice that it has jurisdiction over the Lockerbie question submitted to it by Libya will pave the way for the immediate lifting of imposed sanctions.
TUNIS, July 20 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore arrived at Tripoli airport on Monday despite U.N. sanctions on flights to and from Libya, Libyan state television said. The television, monitored in Tunis, broadcast live the arrival of Compaore at the Libyan capital aboard a Libyan civilian plane it said came directly from Burkina Faso.
It said Compaore was visiting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who had surgery on his hip earlier this month while exercising, according to Libya's official news agency JANA. Compaore was welcomed at the airport by Abu Bakr Jaber Yunes, one of Gaddafi's lieutenants.
JANA quoted Compaore as saying sanctions against Libya over the crash of a U.S. Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 should be lifted. ``There should not be punishment without a verdict. The sanctions have no legal status, they should not go on. Members in the organisation (of African Unity (OAU)), non-aligned countries and the Arab League are against these sanctions. We must continue efforts to end this problem,'' Compaore said.
Burkina Faso is currently chairing the rotating presidency of the OAU. African leaders flew into Libya recently in defiance of the sanctions and in line with an OAU decision last month to ignore the embargo.
TUNIS, July 13 (Reuters) - Libya on Monday rejected a United States announcement that Washington would not support any more humanitarian visits to see Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is recovering from hip surgery.
``While regretting (U.S.) hostile policy, the Foreign Ministry insists that relations and exchanges of visits between leaders of states and peoples do not have to be approved or allowed by the United States,'' the Libyan foreign affairs ministry said in a statement read on state-run television monitored in Tunis.
On Friday, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, discussing a Libyan visit by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said the United States would not suport any more humanitarian trips to see Gaddafi.
Mubarak was granted permission to fly to Libya and check on Gaddafi's health under the U.N. sanctions committee's so-called ``no objection'' procedure.
``There is no doubt that Washington's efforts to tighten the unfair embargo are failing despite its military strength and economic superiority. Libya's relations of friendship and mutual respect with several countries is the rock on which all desperate attempts and wicked intentions will be shattered,'' the statement added.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who visited Gaddafi on Saturday, was denied the chance to fly directly to Libya, landing at the Tunisian airport of Djerba and continuing by land to Libya.
July 10th 1998 the Libyan U.N. mission circulated as a U.N. document on Friday a letter that it said showed that a small fragment of a timing device found in the wreckage of the bombed airliner was of a type never delivered to Libya.
The letter, dated July 2 and apparently from the Swiss company Meister and Bollier (MEBO Ltd), said a photograph of the timer fragment that it received several weeks ago from an unnamed source made clear it was from a prototype of which only three had been manufactured. ``Two of these three MST-13 timers were delivered to the 'Institute for Technical Research' in the then-German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1985. The third of these prototypes was never fitted or completed and has subsequently been recorded as missing from the premises of Meister and Bollier with batches of special film material to manufacture such printed circuit boards.''
The letter, which did not carry the name of any addressee, also complained that, although the company had been shown a police photograph of the Lockerbie fragment during police questioning in 1990, several requests to review the photograph in later years were ``bluntly turned down.'' The letter said that, in light of the photograph recently received ``through third-party generosity,'' the company was certain it had not been allowed to re-examine the official police photo ``because all officials are well aware of the fact that the said MST-13 timer fragment has never been delivered to Libya.''
UNITED NATIONS, July 10 (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Friday he was trying to find a way to bridge differences over the Lockerbie dispute and bring the suspects in the 1988 airliner bombing to trial. He also told a news conference it was important for Security Council resolutions to be respected.
``The Libyan issue is ... one of the priority issues that I am looking at,'' said Annan, who referred to recent meetings with Libya's U.N. ambassador and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. ``I am going to continue my efforts to see if we can find some way of bridging the differences between the two parties,'' he told a questioner. ``I am continuing my contact with the two parties and hopefully we will find some way forward. What is important is that the Security Council resolutions are respected and that member states do not take measures that undermine the council and the United Nations.''
Annan did not specifically refer to a decision last month by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) that it would no longer comply with the sanctions against Libya, as from next September, if the Security Council refused to agree to the suspects' being tried in a third country. ``I don't think, in search of a solution, we need necessarily limit ourselves to the ... options on the table,'' the secretary-general said, referring to various proposals for organising a trial.
What was important was to proceed in good faith to ``try and move the process forward and bring those people to trial and ensure that the victims are vindicated or we get justice,'' he said.
In a related development, a group of relatives of Pan Am flight victims protested on Friday against a decision by the Security Council sanctions committee to allow Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to fly to Libya on Thursday, accompanied by a group of doctors, to visit Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is recovering from a hip operation. ``What we found most shocking was that the United States did not oppose Egypt's request to breach the sanctions,''said Susan Cohen, speaking for a group called Justice for Pan Am 103.
July 10th 1998 The U.N. embargo on air travel to and from Libya is rapidly disintegrating, with organizations representing more than half the world's countries advising their members to disregard the ban.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak became the latest world leader to fly into Libya Thursday. While U.N. officials stressed that Mr. Mubarak asked for and received an exemption to the sanctions in advance, at least two other African heads of state openly defied the embargo this week.
And in yet another sign that Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi is breaking out of long-standing efforts to isolate his country, Italian officials Thursday announced the signing of a bilateral agreement with Libya designed to "create a neighborly relationship." Mr. Mubarak returned last night to Cairo after his one-day visit to Libya, during which he took a team of doctors to examine Col. Gadhafi. The Libyan underwent successful surgery this week for a broken hip.
Slovenian Ambassador Danilo Turk, who heads the U.N. sanctions committee for Libya, said in New York that the committee approved Mr. Mubarak's flight because the humanitarian element provided by the five doctors "was sufficient to allow it." But that was not the case earlier in the week when Col. Gadhafi coaxed more than a score of African leaders to join him in prayer for the birthday of the prophet Mohammed. Two of the African leaders, Idriss Deby of Chad and Ibrahim Bare Mainassara of Niger, appeared with Col. Gadhafi for a televised news conference on Monday at a hospital in Beida, 750 miles from the Libyan capital, where the military leader was awaiting surgery.
By flying into Libya in defiance of the U.N. ban, Col. Gadhafi said, the two had demonstrated "the courage of Africa." Most of the 23 African delegations that visited Monday traveled overland from Tunisia, honoring the embargo technically. But their appearances were widely seen as a snub to the U.N. Security Council, which just last week renewed the sanctions for another four months. Other heads of state in Libya for the prophet's birthday included Senegal's Abdou Diouf, Mali's Alpha Oumar Konare, Sierra Leone's Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and Gambia's Yahya Jammeh. Louis Farrakhan, the U.S. Nation of Islam leader, was also present.
Among the groups that have rejected the sanctions is the Organization of African Unity.The 54-nation body passed a resolution last month in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, urging its members to no longer seek approval from the U.N. sanctions committee before flying to Libya.
Similar resolutions against sanctions have been adopted by the 22-member League of Arab States and the 113-nation Non-Aligned Movement. While there is substantial overlap in the membership of the organizations, altogether they represent well over half the world's countries. The OAU delegates justified their decision by saying Col. Gadhafi's offer to have the Lockerbie suspects tried in a neutral country deserved recognition from the United Nations. Organizations representing families of the victims are divided on whether Col. Gadhafi's offer should be accepted.
Col. Gadhafi scored another diplomatic victory Thursday with the signing in Rome of an accord intended to reverse years of friction with Libya's former colonial ruler, Italy. "The document sets out, on Italy's side, to express regret for past events and, on both sides, to demonstrate determination to create a neighborly relationship which excludes hostile acts against each other," the Italian Foreign Ministry said. The accord is "destined to close definitively, on both sides, the negative heritage of the past and map a new, more dynamic course of relations between the two nations," a ministry statement said.
The ministry said a joint Italo-Libyan commission reached agreement Saturday on fighting terrorism, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, reduction of instability in the region and respect for human rights. A U.S. official who asked not to be identified said the United States was making every effort to verify whether the Chadian and Niger leaders, as well as others, had violated the U.N. sanctions by flying to Libya. "If they did, then the United States shall seek appropriate action by taking the matter to the U.N. sanctions committee," the official said.
Mr. Turk said his committee has not yet determined whether the sanctions have been violated but admitted the committee was concerned by this week's visits and by the declarations of international organizations. "I'm not saying I'm not concerned. This is a worrying political development," he said. U.N. officials are worried that the erosion of the air embargo will undermine the overall credibility of the world body.
Fred Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the African visits to Libya demonstrated "a tendency by many nations to relax their stand on sanctions." "If the sanctions collapse," he said, "it would be a blow to us, the organization that voted them."
Friday, July 10, 1998 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The mother of a young woman killed in the terrorist attack on a Pan Am jetliner in 1988 accused the Clinton administration today of betrayal for not trying to block a visit to Libya by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright responded by defending the U.S. action, saying Mubarak's trip was for a humanitarian purpose. But from now on, she said: ``We are not going to go along with anyone paying any courtesy calls on Mr. Gadhafi.'' At a news conference, Albright said: ``We never forget about the victims'' of the bombing. ``They have absolutely betrayed us, and they don't care about the American victims of terrorism,'' Susan Cohen said in a telephone call to The Associated Press from her home in Cape May Courthouse, N.J.
Despite a U.N. ban on air travel, Mubarak and a delegation of Egyptian officials went to Libya on Thursday to see Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who has had surgery for a broken hip. The United States supported the U.N. sanctions committee in permitting the flight.
Cohen, whose daughter, Theodora, 20, was among 270 victims in the downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, said the Clinton administration ``has given away the store.'' The visit coincides with talks here today between Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Moussa and Albright on a lengthening stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians over the future of the West Bank. Moussa placed Mubarak's call on Gadhafi within ``the parameters of Arab tradition.''
He said the views of Libya were changing and it was useful to maintain a dialogue with Libya ``to find a solution'' to the Pan Am 103 situation. There is a U.N. ban on travel to and from Libya, which is considered a supporter of terrorism by the Clinton administration. However, there was no American objection to Mubarak's visit to Libya, a U.S. official said. Egypt followed the proper procedure by getting the approval from the U.N. sanctions committee for the trip, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
July 6 (Reuters) - A Chad airliner carrying the interior minister has landed in Libya, breaching a U.N. air embargo, state-run Libyan television said on Monday.
The televisionsaid the plane carried Interior Minister Abderaman Salah came directly from the Chadian capital Ndjamena to the airport of el-Abraq, near Beida, some 800 km (500 miles) east of Tripoli. The minister was to join special prayers led by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at Beida's Bilal mosque to mark the birth of the Prophet Mohammad
At a summit last month in Ouagadougou, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), said its members would no longer comply with the sanctions from September this year, if the U.N. Security Council refused to agree to the suspects' being tried in a third country. ``This (flight) is in confirmation of the last Organisation of African Unity decision,'' Libyan television said.
Tripoli-based Arab diplomats said the Libyan government, apparently building on the OAU decision, had invited African leaders to travel to Libya by air despite the embargo, to participate in the prayers for Mohammad's birthday. So far, the Chadian aircraft was the only confirmed direct flight to Libya for the event.
Chad's President Idriss Deby did not board the Chadian plane but arrived later in the afternoon at Beida along with and Niger's President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara on an Libyan Arab airline aircraft. President Abdou Diouf of Senegal also arrived aboard an LAA aircraft.
It was not clear where the LAA planes took off from, but it is usual for foreign visitors fly to the Tunisian airport of Djerba and continue by land to the nearest airport in Libya where they board a domestic flight for Libya's central and eastern regions. Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone, and U.S.Moslem activist Louis Farrakhan are also in Beida but Libyan television did not say how they got there. Libyan television on Monday quoted Farrakhan as saying:''The unity of the Moslem world can end the sanctions against Iraq and Libya, and against Sudan and Nigeria ... and bring balance to the hegemony of the West.''
Libya in 1995 started breaching the air embargo on religious or diplomatic grounds with flights leaving for the annual Moslem pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Gaddafi in 1996 flew to and from Cairo to attend an Arab summit there, and in 1997 he flew to Niger and Nigeria to conduct mass Moslem prayers.
UNITED NATIONS, July 2 (Reuters) - The Security Council on Thursday maintained without change sanctions imposed on Libya since 1992 for failing to extradite two men accused in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) decided last month that its members would no longer comply with the sanctions from September this year if the Security Council refused to agree at its latest review to the suspects' being tried in a third country. Diplomats said no such agreement was made.
``The council once again remained firm in its determination to achieve Libyan compliance. Sanctions will remain in force,'' U.S. envoy Nancy Soderberg said after the council session. Council President Sergei Lavrov said there was no agreement among members to lift the embargoes.
The council's decision came after the latest review of the sanctions, which include an air and arms embargo, conducted every 120 days.
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