September 12, 2003	Friday	Rajab 14, 1424

PARIS, Sept 11: France said on Thursday it was prepared to vote to lift UN sanctions against Libya after the families of those killed in the 1989 bombing of a French jet over Niger reached a compensation deal with Tripoli.

“Now that the families have arrived at an agreement, France naturally no longer has any objection to the UN Security Council voting as soon as possible on the lifting of sanctions against Libya,” Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told a joint press conference with representatives of the families.

“I have just informed my American and British counterparts Colin Powell and Jack Straw,” de Villepin added.

Minutes before, families’ spokesman Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc and attorney Francis Szpiner announced a deal had been reached to compensate the relatives of the 170 people killed when when a DC-10 belonging to the French airliner UTA went down over the west African state of Niger in September 1989.

A Libyan official reached by telephone from Cairo confirmed the deal, said: “We have reached an accord and an understanding on settling this matter.”

No details were released from either side about the amount of compensation Libya was to pay, but Denoix de Saint-Marc said the families had renounced the right to any legal recourse.

He added that the DC-10 families and the Kadhafi Foundation, a charity that negotiated for Tripoli, had “expressed their willingness to reach a definitive payment agreement within one month after the signature of this agreement.”—AFP