US normalizing relations with Libya

May 15, 2006, 17:43 GMT

Washington - The United States on Monday said it was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya and removed the North African country from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Libya's decision in 2003 to abandon weapons of mass destruction programmes and compensate the families of the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, helped usher in the changes in what has been a sour relationship for decades.

'Today's announcements are tangible results that flow from the historic decisions taken by Libya's leadership in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programmes,' US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.

'As a direct result of those decisions we have witnessed the beginning of that country's re-emergence into the mainstream of the international community,' Rice said.

Libya had been a designated state sponsor of terrorism since 1979 and formal diplomatic ties were severed in 1980. In 1986, then US president Ronald Reagan ordered airstrikes on Libya to retaliate for a bombing in a Berlin disco that killed two American servicemen.

The United States has been slowly taking steps toward normalizing relations after Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi allowed US and British teams to remove equipment for weapons of mass destruction programmes and ship them for safeguarding on US soil.

Libya agreed in August 2003 to pay 10 million dollars to each family of the 270 people killed on the Pan Am flight en route to New York.

Washington has already lifted sanctions, allowing US companies to do business in Libya.

US Assistant Secretary of State David Welch said the United States was still concerned about Libya's human rights record. Welch also said Libya needed to be more transparent in its business practices.

In recent years top US officials have visited Libya to lay the groundwork for a new era in relations. Qaddafi's decision was widely seen to have been motivated by a desire to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein's regime following March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Rice said the benefits Libya is receiving by renouncing terrorism and giving up weapons of mass destruction serves as an example Iran and North Korea should follow.

'Just as 2003 marked a turning point for the Libyan people so too could 2006 mark turning points for the peoples of Iran and North Korea,' Rice said. 'Libya is an important model as nations around the world press for changes in behaviour by the Iranian and North Korean regimes - changes that could be vital to international peace and security.'

The United States is pushing international diplomacy aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear arms and persuading North Korea to abandon its atomic weapons programme.