The US and Libya sealed a historic turnaround after decades of terrorist killings, US retaliation, suspicion and insults with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s peacemaking visit with Muammar Qaddafi, Libya’s mercurial strongman.
“The relationship has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now and I think tonight does mark a new phase,” Rice said on Friday after a traditional Ramadan dinner — the evening meal that breaks the day’s fast during the Muslim holy month — at Qaddafi’s official Bab el-Azizia residence. It is the same compound hit by US airstrikes in 1986 in retaliation for a deadly Libyan-linked terrorist attack in Germany. The attack killed Qaddafi’s baby daughter.
“We did talk about learning from the lessons of the past,” Rice said. “We talked about the importance of moving forward. The United States, I’ve said many times, doesn’t have any permanent enemies.”
PHOTO: EPA
Rice is the highest-ranking US official to visit Libya in a half-century. The US considers Qaddafi rehabilitated since the days when former US President Ronald Reagan called him the “mad dog of the Middle East,” because of the Libyan’s surprise decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism and give up weapons of mass destruction. His government has also agreed to resolve legal claims from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other alleged terror attacks that bore Libyan fingerprints.
“Libya has changed, America has changed, the world has changed,” Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said after a meeting with Rice. “Forget the past.”
Qaddafi welcomed Rice in a room redolent of incense. Wearing flowing white robes, his trademark fez and a green pin of Africa, Qaddafi bowed slightly and put his right hand over his heart in a traditional Arab greeting. The two did not shake hands, but Qaddafi did shake the hands of Rice’s male aides.
“We’re off to a good start,” Rice said later. “It is only a start, but I think, after many, many years, it’s a very good thing that the United States and Libya are establishing a way forward.”
The US withdrew its ambassador from Libya in 1972 after Qaddafi renounced agreements with the West and vilified the US in speeches and public statements. Washington cut off diplomatic relations with Libya after a mob sacked and burned the US embassy in 1979.
Qaddafi is known for often unpredictable behavior and has cultivated images as both an Arab potentate and African monarch since taking power in a 1969 coup. In a televised address to the nation this week he said he considers the US neither a friend nor an enemy.
Rice is the first US secretary of state to visit Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953 and the highest-ranking US official to visit since then-US vice president Richard Nixon in 1957.
Libya has agreed to pay compensation to the families of victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, and those of a 1986 attack on a disco in Berlin. The disco attack killed two US servicemen and drew Reagan’s order to attack Libyan targets, including Qaddafi ‘s residence.
Rice was spending only a few hours in Tripoli, an ancient city fronting the Mediterranean Sea and backing to the North African desert, but took time to visit the offices that serve as the US embassy in Libya.
Plans to send a full-fledged ambassador and build a new embassy are hung up in US congress over concern that Libya has not fulfilled its promises to compensate terror victims.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
PETITIONS: A Democratic Progressive Party official quoted President William Lai as saying that civil society groups are organizing the recall drives at the grassroots level Some civil society groups yesterday announced that they have collected enough signatures to pass the first-stage threshold to initiate a recall vote against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators in 18 constituencies nationwide, saying that they would submit the signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) today. They also said that they expected to pass the threshold in eight more constituencies in the coming days, meaning the number of KMT legislators facing a recall vote could reach 26. The groups set up stations to collect signatures at local marketplaces and busy commercial districts. The legislators their petition drives target include Fu
RSS