10 February 2004	Tuesday	18 Zilhaj 1424

LONDON, Feb 9: Libya's foreign minister became the country's most senior official to visit Britain in more than three decades on Monday, on a landmark visit that marks the diplomatic rehabilitation of the one-time pariah state.

Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam began a two-day stay that will include talks with Prime Minister Tony Blair. No Libyan foreign minister has visited Britain since 1969, the year Muammar Qadhafi took power in a bloodless coup.

The British Foreign Office has called the visit a "milestone in what have been steadily improving relations" and part of a wider plan to bring Libya into the "international mainstream".

Libya has long been listed by the United States as a sponsor of terrorism, and suffered U.N. sanctions until last year for the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

But London and Washington have been moving rapidly to bring Tripoli back in from the cold over the past several months. Last year, Libya paid a 2.7 billion dollar compensation package for Lockerbie victims, before making a surprise declaration in December that it was dismantling banned weapons programmes. -Reuters