Rice meets Kadhafi on historic Libya visit (AFP)
by Sylvie Lanteaume 3 minutes ago
TRIPOLI (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on a landmark visit to Tripoli Friday, heralding a new chapter in Washington's reconciliation with the former enemy state.
Rice described her brief visit -- the first to the oil-rich north African country by a US secretary of state in more than half a century -- as "historic" and a sign the United States does not have permanent foes.
"That is not to say that everything has by any means been settled between the United States and Libya. There is a long way to go," she told reporters travelling with her.
"But I do believe that it has demonstrated that the United States doesn't have permanent enemies. It demonstrates that when countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction the United States is prepared to respond."
Diplomats said Rice wanted Iran and North Korea to take note that they could benefit from rapprochement with the West, highlighting Libya's commitment to abandon nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.
"It is a beginning, it is an opening, it is not, I think, the end of the story," Rice said.
Rice met Kadhafi -- once described by former US president Ronald Reagan as a "mad dog" -- at his residence in Tripoli one hour later than scheduled, but the mercurial Libyan leader did not shake her hand and instead touched his heart.
"I look forward to listening to the leader's world view," Rice said of the man who has led the north African nation for almost four decades.
The visit underscores the warming of ties following Kadhafi's dramatic 2003 announcement he was abandoning weapons of mass destruction programmes -- a move which came just months after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
It comes less than a month after the two governments reached an agreement on a plan to compensate US victims of Libyan attacks and Libyan victims of US reprisals.
Rice, meeting Kadhafi in his Tripoli residence which was hit in US bombing raids ordered by Reagan in 1986, was expected to raise the issue of human rights, particularly the case of a jailed dissident whose brother lives in exile in the United States.
Libya's vast oil resources and conflicts in Sudan and Chad were other topics likely up for discussion as well as possible military cooperation.
US-Libya ties were suspended in 1981 when Washington put Kadhafi's regime on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. It was forced even further into isolation after the bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
The White House said Rice's visit marked a "new chapter" and that cooperation could expand in areas including education and culture, commerce, science and technology, and security and human rights.
The last US secretary of state to visit was John Foster Dulles in 1953, who met King Idris -- the ruler ousted in a bloodless military coup led in 1969 by Kadhafi, now the Arab world's longest serving leader.
Richard Nixon was the last top-ranking US official to make the trip, as vice president in 1957.
Last year, Kadhafi proclaimed his love for "Leezza," telling Al-Jazeera television: "I support my darling black African woman. I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders."
Kadhafi's December 2003 announcement followed secret talks with the United States and Britain and returned Libya to the international fold after years of isolation -- with a string of Western leaders treading a path to his door.
Last Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visited to formally apologise for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era and to sign a five-billion-dollar investment deal by way of compensation.
Kadhafi -- who eschews the title president and prefers to be known as "brother leader and guide of the revolution" -- welcomed the end of his regime's long estrangement from Washington.
"The whole business of the conflict between Libya and the United States has been closed once and for all," he said this week. "There will be no more wars, raids or acts of terrorism."
But he also stressed that Libya was not desperate for US friendship, saying: "All we want is to be left alone."
Last month's compensation deal focuses on the families of the 270 Lockerbie victims as well as those of US air strikes on Libya in 1986 in which 41 people were killed, including Kadhafi's adopted daughter.
The US-based Carnegie Endowment think-tank warned Washington against falling into business-as-usual relations with Libya, saying the regime was still "opaque" and "unpredictable."
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