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Libya, US, Britain Meet on Lockerbie Sanctions
The Libyan U.N. ambassador has said that he believed Britain and the United States were acting in good faith in talks aimed at spelling out how Libya can end U.N. sanctions imposed after the 1988 bombing of Pan American flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, US officials said Tuesday.
Abuzed Omar Dorda, the Libyan permanent representative to the United Nations, made the statement Monday after his latest meeting with US ambassador James Cunningham and James Greenstock, the British permanent representative to the United Nations.
"Every day, we do understand each other much better," Dorda said in response to a press question.
The two were acting in "very good faith," Dorda said. "Knowing each other leads to the necessary confidence."
The three ambassadors have met twice since Scottish judges on January 31 convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan national, in the Pan Am bombing, in which 270 people were killed, most of them Americans.
A second Libyan, Al-Amin Khalfa Fahima, was acquitted by the court, which sat in the Netherlands. Al-Megrahi is appealing his conviction.
The UN sanctions, including an air and arms embargo and a ban on some oil equipment, were imposed by the 15-nation UN Security Council in 1992 and 1993 and suspended when Libya handed over the two men for trial in April 1999.
Libya wants the matter closed and sanctions lifted. Washington and London have boiled down a series of council resolutions to two demands before the sanctions can be lifted fully -- an acceptance of responsibility by Libya for the bombing and the payment of " appropriate" compensation to the victims' families. Other requirements have either been fulfilled or quietly dropped.
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