Thursday, 3 January 2008

Shalgam's visit to the United States

Here is a link to The Washington Post's coverage of the visit of Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam to the United States:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010202832.html

As regards Lockerbie, the article states:

'Not all the old issues have been resolved, however, which limited Shalqam's White House visit to a sightseeing tour -- without any meetings with White House or National Security Council staff members, U.S. officials said. The Libyan delegation was hoping for a meeting with Vice President Cheney.

Libya has yet to pay $2 million per victim for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, for which two of Libyan intelligence agents were convicted. Families have been paid $8 million per victim, but the final installment was contingent on Libya being removed by a certain date from the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. When the date passed, Libya withdrew the money.

The families have been pressing the Bush administration to pressure Gaddafi's regime to pay up. "The State Department betrayed us by not protesting the Libyan withdrawal of money from escrow in February 2005," said Rosemary Wolfe, a spokeswoman for the victims' families. "Their feet should be held to the fire."

The families had planned to protest outside the State Department today but decided that their actions would be lost in the focus on the Iowa caucuses, said Wolfe, who charged that the visit was deliberately timed to coincide with another major news event.

"There's still a lot to be done with respect to instituting basic freedoms within Libya. There's still some outstanding issues with respect to claims by U.S. citizens. Those need to be resolved," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is unlikely to visit Tripoli until the compensation issue has been resolved, U.S. officials said, despite her public statement that she was looking forward to a trip to Libya this year.'

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