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Bush calls Gadhafi to laud claims settlement deal
By MATTHEW LEE,Associated Press Writer AP - Tuesday, November 18
WASHINGTON - President Bush called Libya's Moammar Gadhafi to voice his satisfaction with a $1.5 billion payment that Tripoli made to settle a long-standing dispute over terrorist attacks, including the bombing a Pan Am jet over Scotland, the White House said Monday.
In their conversation, Bush and Gadhafi "discussed that this agreement should help to bring a painful chapter in the history between our two countries closer to closure," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement.
Libya's Oct. 31 payment cleared the last hurdle in restoration of full normalization of diplomatic relations between Washington and Tripoli. The money will go into a $1.8 billion fund that will pay $1.5 billion in claims for the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the 1986 bombing of a German disco. Another $300 million will go to Libyan victims of U.S. airstrikes ordered in retaliation for the disco bombing.
David Welch, a State Department diplomat who negotiated the agreement, said at the time that payments to U.S. victims' families should start within days, and family groups hailed the news.
"While we will always mourn the loss of life as a result of past terrorist activities, the settlement agreement is an important step in repairing the relationship between Libya and the United States," said the statement that Johndroe released Monday.
"Libya has taken important steps on the road to normalizing its relations with the international community, beginning with its renunciation in 2003 of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," the statement said. "The United States will continue to work on the bilateral relationship with Libya, with the aim of establishing a dialogue that encompasses all subjects, including human rights reform and the fight against terrorism."
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to meet on Tuesday with Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, who will be in Washington on a private visit, officials said.
In early September, after the settlement deal, Rice became the most senior U.S. official to visit Libya in more than a half century.
Shortly afterward, the U.S. set up a new trade and commercial office in Tripoli.
The developments capped a remarkable turnaround in U.S.-Libyan relations that hit a low in the 1980s but began to improve after Gadhafi _ whom former President Reagan once famously called the "mad dog of the Middle East" _ renounced weapons of mass destruction and terrorism in 2003.
That rapprochement stalled after Libya halted payments to the Lockerbie families under a previous compensation deal. But it picked up again in August when Libya and the United States agreed to a new, comprehensive package covering compensation for all the 1980s-era claims.
All 269 passengers and crew, including 180 Americans, on the Pan Am flight and 11 people on the ground were killed in the Lockerbie bombing. Three people, including two American soldiers, were killed and 230 wounded in the Berlin disco attack. That attack prompted Reagan to order airstrikes on targets in Tripoli and Benghazi that Libyans say killed 41 people, including Gadhafi's adopted daughter.
There has been a huge increase in interest from U.S. firms, particularly in the energy sector, in doing business in Libya, where European companies have had much greater access in recent years. Libya's proven oil reserves are the ninth largest in the world, close to 39 billion barrels, and vast areas remain unexplored for new deposits.
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