Libya Reneges; U.S. Presses for Sanctions : Terrorism: Diplomats aren’t certain when the Security Council will take up resolution.

With events justifying its skepticism, the Bush Administration pressured the United Nations on Wednesday to impose sanctions on Libya after the government of Moammar Kadafi reneged on a pledge to turn over the two suspects in the Pan American Airways Flight 103 terrorist bombing.

But diplomats were uncertain when the Security Council will take up the American-British-French resolution aimed at punishing Libya. Venezuelan Ambassador Diego Arria, this month’s Security Council president, said the 15 members of the council probably would consider the matter Friday. A U.S. official said, however, that the vote might not come until early next week.

Kadafi’s maneuvers Tuesday left a delegation from the Arab League frustrated and empty-handed. Led by Secretary General Esmat Abdel-Meguid, the Arab officials, including four foreign ministers, waited in Tripoli all evening before Kadafi saw them after midnight. And then he insisted that his ambassador to the United Nations had made a mistake in announcing that Libya would give the two suspects to the league, possibly to be passed on for trial in the United States or Britain.

While waiting for Kadafi, the Arab League officials were derided by the official Libyan news agency, Jana, as lackeys of the West and blasphemers for coming to Tripoli “in the last 10 days of Ramadan (the Muslim holy season) to talk about turning over and trying people while they fast and pray.”

The weary members of the team returned to Cairo on Wednesday morning. Abdel-Meguid told reporters: “Consultations are still under way. Frankly, in the current situation we have nothing more than that.”

At the United Nations, diplomats had expected far more. Council President Arria had predicted that the two men would be entrusted to the Arab League under a plan worked out by U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

When he heard that the delegation had returned to Cairo with nothing to report to the press, he said: “No news is bad news.” He said the Security Council would act on the sanctions resolution.

According to news reports from Cairo, diplomats said Kadafi had made it clear to the Arab League delegation that he intends to wait for a decision from the International Court of Justice before giving up the two Libyan officials accused of taking part in the destruction of the Pan Am jet. The bombing, a few days before Christmas in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, resulted in the deaths of 270 people.

At the most, the diplomats said, the Libyan leader indicated that he might consider giving up the two officials, Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi, 39, and Lamen Kahlifa Fhimah, 35, who have been indicted in both Britain and the United States, to the Arab League if it held them at U.N. offices in Tripoli pending a decision from the International Court.

The International Court of Justice, meeting in The Hague, has scheduled a hearing for today on a claim by Libya that the U.N. Security Council has no legal right to pass a resolution demanding that Libya cooperate with the United States and Britain in the Lockerbie case or with France in a second terrorist bombing. In that case, Libyan agents are accused of destroying a UTA airliner over West Africa in 1989, causing the deaths of 171 people.

If the International Court takes the case, it could take months, even years, to reach a decision.

American officials have no intention of delaying sanctions that long. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the sanctions and the International Court case “are not connected in any shape, fashion or form.”

Tutwiler also said the State Department believes that there might be as many as 500 to 1,000 Americans in Libya. The U.S. government has warned them they may be violating U.S. sanctions by working in Libya and has urged them to leave before U.N. sanctions make air travel impossible.

Under the sanctions resolution proposed by the United States, Britain and France, the Security Council would call for a ban on all flights to and from Libya, a halt in the sale of all arms to Kadafi and a reduction in the number of diplomats that Libya could post in its embassies around the world.