US restores its diplomats in Libya after long absence

The US, responding to Libya's change of heart on banned weapons, has restored its diplomatic presence in Tripoli after decades of hostility, Libyan and US officials said on Tuesday.

"Yes, Americans came to Libya to work inside the Belgian Embassy in the US interests section in Libya and Libyans will go to America to work in the Libyan interests section there," Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam told a news conference in London.

Libya's once-shunned leader, Muammar Qaddafi, edged further toward international acceptance with a visit to his hometown by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a promise of a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed a diplomat had returned to the Libyan capital and said he also expected Libyan diplomats to set up in Washington.

"For the first time now in a long time, we've got an American officer who's been assigned to Tripoli," he said.

Libya, whose quest for ties with the US and its allies is driven by economic necessity, pledged in December to scrap its weapons of mass destruction programs in cooperation with foreign experts.

Boucher said the diplomat's main task in Libya was to help US weapons experts. "We do expect now to have US diplomats in Tripoli on a regular and ongoing basis as that work proceeds," he said. "I expect that sooner or later, probably sooner, the Libyans will have diplomats in Washington."

Washington recalled its last ambassador more than two decades ago after a mob sacked the embassy in Tripoli. Diplomatic relations were never formally severed.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said at the news conference with Chalgam that Blair planned talks with Qaddafi "as soon as convenient," but no date had been set.

Blair earlier met Chalgam, making the first visit to Britain by a Libyan foreign minister since Qaddafi seized power in 1969.

Talks between Blair and Gaddafi would set the seal on Libya's reintegration, although Berlusconi's meeting with the colonel in his hometown of Sirte was the first by a Western leader since Tripoli's Dec. 19 weapons pledge.

Berlusconi and Qaddafi were expected to discuss efforts to stem the flow of illegal migrants from Libya across the Mediterranean, officials and diplomats said.

Straw said "good progress" was being made on implementing Libya's promise to abandon banned weapons and Chalgam said Tripoli was cooperating fully with international experts.

"Regarding programs of weapons of mass destruction, we are the ones who took the initiative in this matter," Chalgam said.

"To have flour, water and fire does not mean that you have bread," he said, stressing that while Libya had acquired equipment, material and scientific information, it had never decided to produce such weapons.

Chalgam also said he expected the US to ease travel restrictions on US citizens visiting Libya, in a first step toward easing US sanctions.

The US Embassy in London said on Friday that talks among US, British and Libyan officials had covered the possible removal of travel curbs. Easing the sanctions could allow US oil companies to resume activities in Libya, which they abandoned when expanded US sanctions forced them to pull out in 1986.