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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing