US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns arrived in Libya on Tuesday for talks with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, becoming the highest-level American official to visit Libya since 1980.
Burns arrived on the previously unannounced visit from Egypt, where he met with President Hosni Mubarak and then with EU, Russian and UN officials to discuss the Israel-Palestinian situation.
Relations between Libya and the West have warmed recently as Qaddafi has made extraordinary steps to shed his country's reputation as a rogue nation.
The US administration has responded to Qaddafi's moves by lifting a 23-year-old ban on Americans using their passports to travel to Libya and permitting American companies to hold talks with Libyans about future economic transactions.
A number of US lawmakers have come to Libya in the last two months in visits seen as preliminary steps to renewing ties between the countries.
"There are still a number of issues between the United States and Libya that we need to work on, that we need to try to clear up," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. "The questions of terrorism, the questions of Libya's support for groups around Africa, the questions of human rights and other things that we need to take up with the Libyans."
However, Boucher said "this overall process is based on the very significant and dramatic steps that Libya has taken in deciding to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction."
In December, Qaddafi agreed to dismantle Libya's nuclear program under US, British and UN supervision, in return for a restoration of diplomatic ties with Washington. Libya also accepted responsibility last year for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, prompting the UN Security Council to lift its sanctions.
Burns is the highest-level US official to meet with Qaddafi since then-Deputy Ambassador William Eagleton called on the Libyan leader in 1980 to formalize a suspension of diplomatic relations.
In other high-ranking visits, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected in Libya on Thursday, Qaddafi's son said.
Seif el-Islam Qaddafi told reporters in Doha, Qatar, on Monday that Blair and his father would discuss Libya's drive to get US sanctions lifted and the prospects of military cooperation between Libya and Britain and America.
In London, Blair's office declined to comment on reports of a visit to Libya, saying the prime minister's travel plans are kept secret for security reasons.
Britain resumed diplomatic relations with Libya in 1999, 15 years after it broke ties when London police constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by gunfire from the Libyan Embassy.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS