Global Arab Network | Gaddafi Summit - Libyan leader meets Obama and Brown

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Gaddafi Summit - Libyan leader meets Obama and Brown

Global Arab Network - - Adam Turner

Friday, 10 July 2009 10:50

Arab reporters and journalists covering the G8 summit in Italy called the event the 'Gaddafi Summit', after Obama and Brown met the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Obama is the first US president who met the Libyan leader after relations broke down between Libya and US.

The two leaders were photographed greeting each other and television images later showed Obama and Gaddafi -- who wore ruby red- and gold-flecked robes and hat -- separated only by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the dinner table.

The United States and Libya resumed diplomatic ties in 2004 after a break lasting more than two decades. The United States designated Libya a "state sponsor of terrorism" in 1979, and President Ronald Reagan ordered Libyan assets in the United States frozen in January 1986.

Relations sank further when the United States blamed Libya for the deadly bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by U.S. military personnel. U.S. aircraft bombed Tripoli, Benghazi and Gaddafi's home in April 1986, killing his adopted infant daughter.

In 2003, Libya reached a political agreement with the United States and Britain to accept responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay about $2.7 billion in victims' compensation.

Later that year, Libya announced it was abandoning its weapons of mass destruction programs. President George W. Bush formally ended a U.S. trade embargo against Tripoli in 2004, and Libya declared an end to confrontation with the United States in 2008.
Brown_Meets_Libyas_Gaddafi

In talks between Gaddafi and Brown, are believed to be the first time Mr Brown has met Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's Leader asked British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for help in the case of the dying former Libyan agent who is appealing against a life sentence for the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing.

The Scottish Appeal Court said this week the case would not be concluded until next year, raising concerns that 57-year-old Abdel Basset al-Megrahi -- who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer -- will die before the appeal finishes.

"Gaddafi raised the issue of Mr. Megrahi," Brown's spokesman told reporters at the G8 summit in Italy, where the two leaders held bilateral talks, the first time they had met.

"The Libyans reiterated their longstanding position that they would like to see him go back to Libya. The prime minister made clear it was a matter for the Scottish government."

The Libyan and British governments signed a prisoner transfer agreement this year and Tripoli has sought Megrahi's return. But Scotland has a separate legal system from the rest of Britain and his fate lies with the Scottish government.

Scotland's Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill is currently consulting all parties concerned, including the U.S. and Libyan governments and families of the victims of the bombing before deciding whether to accede to Libya's request.

"There is a very serious danger that my client will die before the case is determined," Megrahi's lawyer told the appeal court this week, adding that his health "is deteriorating with a relentless onset of symptoms."

His lawyers have questioned whether the trial court was right to accept evidence relating to his identification, the type of fuse in the bomb and how it was consigned to the Pan Am flight.

In the next hearings, legal sources said the appeal lawyers were expected to introduce fresh evidence and question the competence of his previous lawyers.

This is Gaddafi's second trip to Libya's former colonial ruler Italy in a month. He arrived last month wearing the photo of a colonial-era Libyan resistance hero pinned to his chest.

The Libyan leader, who is at the G8 summit in his role as African Union chairman, is staying in a bedouin tent pitched on a soccer field in L'Aquila's police barracks, just a few kilometres away from less-opulent tents for those left homeless by an April earthquake.

U.S.-Libyan relations
According to Reuters, the following are some important events in U.S.-Libyan relations:

January 1986 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan orders halt to economic and commercial relations with Libya, freezes Libyan assets in the United States.

April 1986 - U.S. blames Libya for bombing of West Berlin disco used by U.S. military personnel that killed three people and wounded more than 200.

April 1986 - U.S. aircraft bomb Tripoli, Benghazi and the home of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Libya says more than 40 people are killed, including Gaddafi's adopted baby daughter.

December 1988 - Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York is blown up over Scotland, killing 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie.

April 1999 - Libya hands over two suspects in the Pan Am bombing. They stand trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law.

January 2001 - One suspect is found guilty of murder and given a mandatory life sentence. The other is acquitted.

March 2003 - Libya reaches political agreement with the United States and Britain to accept civil responsibility for the bombing. Libya agrees to pay about $2.7 billion.
Libya says it will abandon weapons of mass destruction programs and allow international inspectors.

June 2004 - U.S. and Libya resume diplomatic ties after 24 years.

September 2004 - President George W. Bush formally ends U.S. trade embargo on Libya, rewarding it for giving up weapons of mass destruction, but leaves some terrorism-related sanctions in place.

January 2008 - Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam, Libya's foreign minister, declares an end to confrontation with the United States during a visit to Washington, the first by a Libyan foreign minister since 1972.

August 2008 - Libya and the United States sign a deal to compensate all U.S. and Libyan victims of bombings or their relatives.

September 2008 - Condoleezza Rice meets Gaddafi in Tripoli during the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to Libya since 1953.

July 2009 - Gaddafi and U.S. President Barack Obama shake hands at a world leaders' dinner during a G8 summit in Italy.
(AFP, AP, Reuters, Sky News)

Global Arab Network

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