U.S. ambassador arrives in Libya

The first U.S. ambassador to Libya in more than three decades arrived in Tripoli on Saturday, in a further sign of the two nations’ improving ties.

Gene Cretz, a career U.S. diplomat whose foreign postings have included Tel Aviv, Cairo, New Delhi and Beijing, said he would strive to broaden links between Tripoli and Washington.

“I’m happy to be in Libya,” he told reporters on his arrival here in the Libyan capital, naming business and tourism among his priorities for expanded cooperation.

U.S.-Libyan ties have improved dramatically since Libya’s decision five years ago to abandon the pursuit of nuclear and other weapons and the subsequent resolution of disputes over bombings for which Washington blamed Libya.

U.S. officials said the last big obstacle to normal ties was removed in October, when Libya paid $1.5 billion into a fund to settle claims by the families of U.S. citizens killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, a 1986 attack on a West Berlin disco and some other incidents.

After Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi seized power in 1969 in a coup, ties became increasingly strained because of his support for what the United States regarded as international terrorism.

The United States withdrew its ambassador from Tripoli in 1972, and all U.S. diplomats left after a mob attacked and set fire to the U.S. Embassy in 1979.

The two countries reopened lower-level missions in each other’s capitals in 2004 and upgraded them to full embassies in 2006.