The White House on Tuesday delayed plans to lift US travel restrictions to Libya after the Libyan prime minister denied his country's guilt in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Washington immediately demanded a retraction of the comments by Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem, who said Tripoli had only agreed to pay compensation to bombing victims in order to "buy peace."
US President George W. Bush had been poised to ease the decades-old travel ban and take other steps on Tuesday to reward Libya for scrapping its nuclear arms programs. But officials said the announcement was put on hold in protest.
US officials said they expected the Libyan government to issue a statement backing away from Ghanem's comments. If it does so, the White House was likely to go forward with plans to lift the travel ban later this week.
"Libya made it very clear in their letter to the United Nations that it accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials on that very matter [Lockerbie]. And I would expect Libya to make clear that that is still their position," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
Susan Cohen, whose daughter was among the Lockerbie victims, said the denial showed Libya had not changed its attitudes.
"I think this is outrageous that the US government stands for this. The United States is supposed to be making Libya accept responsibility and here you have the prime minister denying it. I think the United States is giving Libya a pass just to get Libyan oil," she said.
In the first tangible step toward easing US sanctions, Bush had planned to immediately lift restrictions on the use of US passports for travel to Libya and to allow US citizens to spend money should they visit the North African nation.
Bush was also poised to clear the way for Libyan diplomats to work in Washington. The US has already re-established a diplomatic presence in Tripoli after more than 20 years.
"Libya is making important progress in their efforts to dismantle their WMD programs. ... As they take these important steps, they will be able to realize better relations with the United States," McClellan said.
But the White House has made clear that major US trade sanctions would stay in place, at least for the time being. To keep pressure on Tripoli to cooperate, congressional sources said Bush was likely to only gradually lift the ban on direct trade and US imports of Libyan crude oil.
Easing the sanctions could allow US oil companies to resume activities in Libya, which they had to abandon when expanded US sanctions forced them to pull out in 1986. OPEC member Libya produces around 1.4 million barrels daily.
After years of negotiations, Libya agreed last year to pay US$2.7 billion in compensation for Lockerbie victims, many of whom were Britons and Americans on Pan Am flight 103 when it was blown up over the Scottish town.
Unless Washington drops Libya from its state sponsors of terrorism list and ends its bilateral sanctions by April, Libya is entitled under a compensation deal reached last year to halve the US$10 million payout it has promised relatives of each victim of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing. However, that deadline can be extended if Libya and the relatives agree.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS