WASHINGTON, Aug 23: The United States indicated on Monday that it might offer more concessions to Libya if the once pariah state moved further to address weapons, democracy and human rights concerns.
“I think that we have certainly come a long way from where we were in our relationship with Libya, but there are certainly issues that still need to be addressed and we’re working with Libya on these issues,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
“If they continue to make progress along the pathway that we have laid out, we, again, will meet their acts of good faith in return,” he told reporters.
Mr McCormack was commenting on reports quoting the son of the Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi that the United States would open an embassy in Tripoli within days and that Libya would be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism by year’s end.
Mr McCormack noted that the United States already had low-level diplomatic representation in Tripoli at present.
“We will see how the relationship evolves. But the relationship will evolve in a way that reflects actions and facts on the ground,” he said.
Asked whether Seif al Islam Qadhafi’s reported comments were premature, Mr McCormack said: “I think I’m going to stick with what I said.”
A senior US official said he was not aware of any imminent opening of a US embassy in Libya.
“I think there are some issues to be resolved as far as I understand,” he said.
Seif al Islam’s reported comments came following a weekend visit to the north African nation by influential US Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Mr Lugar said he had discussed human rights and economic cooperation with President Qadhafi as well as getting Libya removed from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Tripoli had ‘adopted a definitive position on the matter’ of terrorism and there has been a ‘major and progressive’ improvement in relations between the two countries, the senator said.
Qadhafi had expressed his hope to Mr Lugar that President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit Libya.
Ties were restored in June last year after Mr Qadhafi’s surprise announcement in Dec 2003 that he was abandoning a program to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Since then a number of world leaders have visited Libya, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac. —AFP
