[The following are excerpts from an article just posted on the English-language website of the leading Arabic daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.]
Libya has condemned Washington’s diplomatic warnings to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi against the repercussions of aggravating US emotions regarding the Lockerbie bombings during his upcoming visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York later this month where he will deliver a speech as head of the African Union.
The official spokesman for the Libyan foreign office stated that it is wrong for Washington to try to dictate to Gaddafi what he should say at the event.
Gaddafi is scheduled to visit the UN General Assembly for the first time since coming to power in Libya. Earlier this month, Gaddafi celebrated the 40th anniversary of the coup against the Libyan monarch King Idris al Senussi in 1969, which brought him to power.
Gaddafi ... will deliver a speech to world leaders at the annual meeting on September 23 directly after President Obama. (...)
The Libyan Foreign Ministry Spokesman said, ‘Al Megrahi in our opinion and in the opinion of many states is a “political hostage” and this was corroborated by Arab League resolutions and by the neutral stances of Africa and the Islamic world in this regard.’ Meanwhile, in what seemed to be a response to US criticism of the way al Megrahi was received in Libya, the Libyan official added, ‘We were not receiving a criminal or a terrorist; we were receiving a victim and the documents, which are backed by many families of [Lockerbie] victims, will prove his innocence and they must refer back to these [Arab League] resolutions.’
At last, something sensible is reported about Colonel Gaddafi's address to the UN General Assembly in New York on 23 September 2009.
ReplyDeleteThe US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, has been putting it about that his UN speech should last for no longer than 5 minutes. And the Daily Mail seriously expects us to believe that Gaddafi is bent on abolishing Switzerland (see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210936/Now-Colonel-Gaddafi-wants-abolish-Switzerland-Dictator-files-bizarre-motion-U-N.html).
Whereas, as we all know, Colonel Gaddafi will actually be trying to persuade the UN to institute a 'United Nations Inquiry into the death of UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing' (cf. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/UNInquiry/).