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EU ends 12 years of Libya sanctions
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-12 08:50
The European Union on Monday ended 12 years of sanctions against Libya and
eased an arms embargo to reward the North African country for giving up plans to
develop weapons of mass destruction.
The decision by the EU foreign ministers brought the 25-nation bloc in line
with a U.N. decision last year and reflected a significant warming of relations
in recent months.
"This is a turning point in relations with Libya," French European Affairs
Minister Claudie Haignere said.
The U.N. sanctions were imposed in 1992 to force Tripoli to hand over two
Libyans indicted for the 1988 bombing of an American airliner over the Scottish
town of Lockerbie. A year later, they were expanded to include a freeze on
Libyan assets in foreign bank accounts and a ban on buying oil equipment.
The Security Council suspended the sanctions after the two Lockerbie suspects
were delivered for trial in 1999, and abolished them last year after Libya
agreed to compensate the families of the Lockerbie victims as well as those of
the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over Niger.
The EU, like the United States, wants to improve relations with Libya now
that Tripoli has scrapped its program to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Britain was pushing for a complete normalization of relations between the
25-nation EU and Libya and a full lifting of a separate arms embargo, according
to a senior British official in London.
But friction remains over a Libyan court's conviction of five Bulgarian
nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of deliberately infecting more than 400
Libyan children with the AIDS virus. They were sentenced to death in May after
allegedly infecting the children as part of an experiment to find a cure for
AIDS.
Human rights groups allege Libya concocted the experiment story to hide
unsafe practices in its hospitals and clinics. Bulgaria has close ties with the
EU and is to become a full member in 2007.
"We are very concerned about the situation of the Bulgarian citizens," said
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. He said the EU wants that court
ruling to be reversed.
The Europeans are eager to invest in Libya's substantial oil reserves and
obtain its cooperation in stopping the flow of illegal immigrants into Europe.
Separately, the foreign ministers approved an Italian request to ease the
EU's own arms embargo imposed on Libya in 1986. This will enable Libya to buy
high-tech equipment to prevent the flow of illegal African migrants through
Libya into Europe.
An EU "technical mission" will likely visit Libya in November to assess
Libya's need for equipment to monitor illegal migration.
Italy wants to sell equipment such as night-vision binoculars and
helicopters, but has not been able to do so because of the arms embargo.
The United States lifted most of its commercial sanctions in April after
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi abandoned his banned weapons programs.
As a sign of warming relations, Gadhafi went to the EU's Brussels
headquarters in April on his first trip outside the Mideast or Africa in 15
years.
European Commission President Romano Prodi has visited Libya several times to
meet Gadhafi to discuss ways for Libya to sign up to an EU aid and trade pact it
has with North African and Middle Eastern nations.
To join up to that pact, Libya will have to sign declarations renouncing
terrorism as well as committing to implement democratic reforms and respect
human rights.
Also Monday, Gadhafi received a delegation of Italian Jews for talks on
possible compensation of Libyan Jews expelled after the 1967 Middle East war, a
representative of one of Gadhafi's sons said.
It was believed to be the first meeting in Libya with representatives of the
6,000 Libyan Jews who fled an anti-Jewish backlash following Israel's victory.
Saadi Gadhafi, a professional soccer player in Italy, played a key role in
setting up the meeting, according to Nicola Ravarini from a Milan public
relations firm representing the son. In Libya, officials did not comment.
Three weeks ago, the elder Gadhafi for the first time spoke about the
possibility of compensation. "We have to separate between the Jews and Zionism,
therefore the Jews who were in Libya and whose properties were unjustly
confiscated should be compensated ... but those Jews who seized properties from
Palestinians in Israel do not deserve compensation," he said.
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