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Rice's 'historic visit' to Libya of significance
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-06 20:45 BEIJING - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left Tripoli Friday night, concluding the first visit by a US top diplomat in over 50 years to a "pariah" state once shunned by Washington.
The historic visit during which Rice had a landmark meeting with Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi has attracted worldwide attention and is of profound significance. Strengthening ties with Libya Rice is the highest-ranking US official who has visited Libya since then-Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957 and also the first secretary of state who has visited Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953, at a time when she was not born.
From 1980, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Tripoli. But in late 2003, Libya pledged to abandon its programs for weapons of mass destruction, stop exporting terrorism and compensate the families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing and other attacks. Afterward, Libya was given a reprieve from the UN and Western sanctions. In January this year, Libyan Foreign minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam visited the US and the two countries agreed earlier this month a comprehensive deal that Tripoli would compensate US and Libyan victims in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. These moves have completed a nearly five-year effort to rebuild ties between the US and Libya, paving way for Rice's visit. "The relationship has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now and I think tonight does mark a new phase," Rice said after meeting with Gaddafi. |
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