Foreign Office Minister Meets Gadafy

A Foreign Office minister yesterday had lengthy talks with the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, once regarded as a prime sponsor of terrorism but now seen as a potential ally in the fight against Islamic fundamentalist groups, including al-Qaida.

Mike O'Brien, the first British minister to visit Libya in nearly 20 years, had three hours of talks with Col Gadafy in the Mediterranean city of Sirte after a series of meetings with Libyan officials in the capital, Tripoli.

British officials described the meetings, which also covered the Lockerbie disaster, the killing of police officer Yvonne Fletcher in London in 1984, and chemical weapons, as "thorough and workmanlike".

The fact that so many senior Libyan officials, including the foreign minister, Abdul Rahman Shalgem, met Mr O'Brien showed that Col Gadafy was serious about mending fences with Britain, British officials said.

The Foreign Office, in marked contrast to the US, believes it is in the west's strategic interest to engage with Libya, a country Washington has branded a "state of concern".

Col Gadafy, whose country is rich in oil, is no friend of Islamic fundamentalist groups.

"It is more likely that Libya will move away from international terrorism if it is part of the international community, and that is why I am meeting Col Gadafy," Mr O'Brien said yesterday.

"Libya is moving away from being an outlaw pariah state towards engagement with the west and ... complying with international law," he told BBC radio. "Our hard-headed judgment all along has been that we are more likely to achieve that by encouraging rather than isolating Libya."

He rejected a comparison between Libya and Iraq, saying Col Gadafy was clearly moving towards compliance with international law while Saddam Hussein was not.

The colonel sent a government plane to collect Mr O'Brien from a former US air base outside Tripoli and fly him to Sirte, the Libyan leader's birthplace.

Outstanding issues remain between Britain and Libya.

British officials said Libya needed to comply fully with UN resolutions calling for Libya to accept responsibility and pay compensation to families of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Col Gadafy has agreed to pay compensation but still refuses to admit responsibility despite the conviction of Libyan official Abdel Baset al-Megrahi of involvement in the bombing. UN sanctions against Libya, now suspended, will not be fully lifted until he does.

The talks, which also included the Libyan ambassadors to London and Rome, covered a reopened Metropolitan police inquiry into the murder of Yvonne Fletcher, shot in the back during a demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in London. The police want Libya to extradite a man suspected of the killing.

Britain is also pressing Libya to sign an international chemical weapons protocol paving the way to inspections.