Sarkozy, Gaddafi sign deals worth 10 billion euros (Roundup)

Dec 10, 2007, 20:37 GMT

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi agreed on deals worth more than 10 billion euros (14.6 billion dollars) Monday, the first day of Gaddafi's controversial five-day state visit to France.

The agreements were signed following a state dinner hosted by Sarkozy in Gaddafi's honour, and include an accord of cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear energy by Libya.

In addition, France was contracted to deliver one or more nuclear reactors to Libya to be used in a seawater desalinization plant.

Contracts were also signed by Libyan Airlines and Afriqiyah Airways for the purchase of 21 Airbus planes, including 10 A350 XWBs, a long-haul aircraft Airbus is developing to compete with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

France also agreed to provide Libya with a variety of military equipment.

Earlier Monday, shortly after the Libyan leader arrived in Paris, Sarkozy fiercely defended Gaddafi in the face of criticism regarding the visit.

'Today, France is welcoming a head of state who decided definitively to renounce weapons of mass destruction,' Sarkozy told journalists after a one-hour meeting with Gaddafi at the Elysee Palace.

'France is welcoming a head of state who definitively renounced terrorism - a head of state who has compensated the victims' of Libyan state-sponsored terrorist acts, Sarkozy said.

The French president said Libya wanted to become a full-fledged member of the international community. 'It is my deepest conviction that France must speak with all those who want to be integrated in the international community,' he said.

Apparently unfazed by the controversy that preceded his arrival in Paris, a smiling Gaddafi shook hands with Sarkozy and waved to journalists before entering the Elysee Palace.

His trip to France has provoked an angry debate, with even members of Sarkozy's government openly critical of the visit.

In an interview published Monday in the daily Le Parisien, Junior Minister for Human Rights Rama Yade fiercely criticized the date of the visit, which begins on World Human Rights Day, and said she would not take part in the state dinner Sarkozy was hosting for Gaddafi later Monday.

'Colonel Gaddafi must understand that our country is not a doormat on which a leader, terrorist or not, can clean his bloody feet of their infamy,' Yade told the daily.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also appeared to distance himself from the visit, telling France Inter radio he was 'resigned' to Gaddafi's coming to France and hoped that it would help speed up the 'evolution' in Libya.

Apparently shaken by the controversy, Sarkozy felt compelled to defend his own human rights record, saying that he and his government had freed the Bulgarian nurses who had been sentenced to death by a Libyan court for infecting children with AIDS.

'France liberated them,' Sarkozy said. 'I demanded it and I obtained it.'

He also noted that he was the only French president to openly demand, at a press conference in Beijing, that China outlaw the death penalty.