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Gaddafi invites Bush, Rice to visit Libya
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-21 10:10
TRIPOLI - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, keen to improve ties with the
West, has invited President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to
visit his country, a visiting U.S. senator said on Saturday, Reuters reported.
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| Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is seen in this file photo from July
4, 2005. [Reuters] | U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, ending a two-day trip to Libya, told a news
conference he had held talks with Gaddafi on normalizing relations after decades
of estrangement, following Tripoli's decision to abandon weapons of mass
destruction.
Lugar, an Indiana Republican, flew to Libya on Friday after representing Bush
in Morocco and Algeria for the release of 404 prisoners of war who were held by
Western Sahara's exiled Polisario Front independence movement.
Lugar's trip was the highest-profile U.S. visit to Libya since relations
began to thaw.
The United States and other Western countries have been rebuilding ties with
Tripoli after Libya accepted responsibility for the 1988 Pan Am bombing over
Lockerbie, Scotland, and said it would give up weapons of mass destruction.
Top Western officials who have visited Libya include Canadian Prime Minister
Paul Martin, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac and Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi.
"I noted the dramatic improvement in U.S.-Libyan relations and stressed the
U.S. commitment to a continually improving relationship as cooperation between
our countries grows," Lugar said, adding that the two countries had important
shared interests, including in combating terrorism.
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