Rice to host Libya as former foes mend ties [View All]

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Rice to host Libya as former foes mend ties
Thu Jan 3, 2008 2:22am EST

By Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice will host Libya's foreign minister on Thursday --
the first visit by the top Tripoli diplomat since 1972 --
in a sign of warmer ties between the former foes.

Rice will meet with Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-
Rahman Shalgam days after Libya took over the rotating
presidency of the U.N. Security Council, another
milestone in the North African country's shedding of
its pariah status in the West.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice
would discuss Washington's 2008 goals on the council
and bilateral issues, including human rights and
unresolved cases from the 1980s bombings in which Libya
was implicated.

Ties between the two countries, which re-opened full
embassies in each other's capitals in 2006 after a 25-year
break, were "changing in a positive way," but there was
still much to be done, McCormack told reporters.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0216722620080103