PARIS, Oct 19: France and Libya have decided to revive their joint commission after a lapse of 20 years and will hold the first meeting on Monday.

The decision was taken after a whirlwind visit on Friday to Tripoli by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Villepin was able to bring about the impossible, said a member of his entourage, by persuading his Libyan interlocutors to agree to the payment of indemnities to the families of the 170 victims of the 1989 bombing of a French aircraft after it had taken off from Chad.

Until the last minute, says an adviser to the foreign minister, there had been much doubt as to whether Libya would agree at last to come through with payment of the indemnities.

For the moment, the Libyan promise is unofficial, but Mr de Villepin feels that it should be sufficient to placate families of the victims of the UTA crash who had threatened to protest the holding of the joint commission meeting in Paris.

Says an aide: “We have received the assurance that Libya is now prepared to envisage the payment of indemnities to those victims who have not yet been indemnified.”