Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair sealed Libya's return to the world community with a historic handshake with Muammar Qaddafi on Thursday and an agreement to fight al-Qaeda together.
After more than an hour of talks, the UK prime minister said Libya's rejection of banned weapons and rapprochement with the West could act as a template for other Arab nations to turn their back on Islamic extremism.
"We are showing by our engagement with Libya today that it is possible for countries in the Arab world to work with the United States and the UK to defeat the common enemy of extremist fanatical terrorism driven by al-Qaeda," he said.
PHOTO: EPA
"It is a very, very important signal for the whole of the Arab world."
On the first visit to Libya by a British leader since 1943, Blair was whisked to a ceremonial tent outside Tripoli to meet Qaddafi, once condemned by former US president Ronald Reagan as the "mad dog of the Middle East."
There, the pair symbolically shook hands for the cameras before vowing to work together to oppose militant Islamism.
"You are looking good, you are still young," Qaddafi told Blair, 50, speaking in English.
Blair said Qaddafi recognized "a common cause with us in the fight against al-Qaeda, extremism and terrorism, which threatens not just the Western world but the Arab world also."
Tripoli announced last December it would abandon efforts to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in a bid to further mend ties with the West after agreeing to pay damages for a 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
A Libyan secret agent was jailed in January 2001 for life for the bombing, which killed 270 people.
Blair pledged not to forget the pain caused by the bombing but said Libya should be welcomed back into the global fold.
Libya has also agreed to compensation for victims of a 1989 French airliner bombing over Africa, which killed 170 people.
Many relatives of the Lockerbie victims have said they support the diplomatic milestone but in the US on Thursday reaction ranged from cautious optimism to revulsion.
"Obviously I have mixed feelings given that Qaddafi was responsible for the murder of my son," said Jack Schultz of Belgrade Lakes, Maine, whose son, Thomas, died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
"I can't forgive anybody for that, but I'm ready to accept that the world is probably a better off place for the United States and Britain to come to terms with Libya," he said.
But Daniel Cohen of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, whose 20-year-old daughter Theodora was killed in the bombing, called Blair's initiative, "obscene."
"Blair came from a ceremony in Madrid, a memorial service to the victims of the second largest terrorist attack in Europe and then hopped on a plane and went to Tripoli to embrace the architect of the largest terrorist attack in Europe," Cohen said. "I think his action is obscene."
Gains to British business from the diplomatic thaw were notched up even before Blair arrived. Oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell won a US$200 million gas exploration deal with Libya.
Blair also announced defense contractor BAE Systems would clinch a major deal shortly and a trade mission would visit Tripoli next month.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in