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SIRTE (Libya), Aug 7: Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi held his first ever talks with a British minister on Wednesday, launching a new era in relations with the North African state.
British Foreign Office minister Mike O’Brien and Qadhafi started their meeting in a Bedouin-style tent on a sandy Mediterranean beach in the city of Sirte, a Libyan official said.
O’Brien is seeking Qadhafi’s cooperation in curbing “terrorism” after the Sept 11 attacks and in halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
A British source said the meeting took place after nearly five hours of talks between O’Brien and senior Libyan ministers at a hotel complex in the coastal city.
He stressed to them that Libya needed to ensure full compliance with United Nations resolutions calling for Libya to accept responsibility and pay compensation to families of the victims of the 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The source said O’Brien “made clear our concerns that even if they do comply...even then there is a need for reassurance on issues of weapons of mass destruction”.
The Sirte talks with Qadhafi cap a cautious re-engagement between the former foes after years of hostility following the fatal shooting of a British policewoman outside Libya’s London embassy, British-backed US raids on Libya and the Lockerbie bombing.
Britain’s Foreign Office said government ministers had met Qadhafi decades ago but had never held talks.
O’BRIEN DEFENDS VISIT: Speaking on BBC radio from the Libyan capital Tripoli earlier on Wednesday, O’Brien defended his visit to Libya and talks with Qadhafi — long demonized in London for his support of republicans fighting British rule in Northern Ireland.
“It is more likely that Libya will move away from international terrorism if it is part of the international community, and that is why I am meeting Colonel Qadhafi,” he said.
He rejected a comparison between Libya and Iraq, saying Qadhafi was clearly moving towards compliance with international law while Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was not.
Qadhafi sent a government plane to collect O’Brien from a former US air base outside Tripoli and fly him to Sirte, where the Libyan leader was born.
In Sirte, the British minister’s motorcade swept past murals welcoming guests to “the land of the great revolution”.
“We are so proud to be Africans,” another sign declared, reflecting Qadhafi’s policy shift away from the Arab world and towards Africa.—Reuters
