Libyan Flights Repulsed by Other Nations : Sanctions: Seven countries tell diplomats to go home as U.N. measures against Kadafi take hold.

In an act of defiance and testing, Col. Moammar Kadafi sent Libyan airline flights out toward Europe and the rest of North Africa on Wednesday, but foreign airports turned the planes away as U.N. sanctions clamped down on Libya in punishment for a calculated pattern of terrorism.

Although anti-American and anti-U.N. rhetoric roiled throughout the Muslim world, the governments of the key Muslim countries followed the orders of the Security Council and imposed the sanctions a minute after midnight (EDT).

There was little for the U.S. government to do, since it banned commerce with Libya several years ago and has no diplomatic relations with it. But the Bush Administration quickly announced the expulsion within 10 days of three of the dozen diplomats at the Libyan Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Reports of more expulsions came from the rest of the industrialized world. Two dozen diplomats were told to leave France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and Japan.

Switzerland, although not a U.N. member and guarding a long history of neutrality, said it will impose sanctions as well.

Kadafi’s government quickly retaliated, telling diplomats of France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Japan that it is expelling some of their embassy employees, according to a Libyan Radio broadcast monitored in London.

“Threats can never make us take a god besides Allah,” the Libyan Foreign Ministry said in a statement, “and we shall not kneel except to him.”

A conference of Arab union leaders in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, announced that airline transport workers will restrict ground services for American, British and French airliners in the Arab world from April 20 to April 30 in protest. But this is not expected to hamper these flights.

Most analysts agreed that the sanctions--a halt in commercial air traffic, a ban on arms sales and a reduction in Libyan diplomats abroad--would not cripple Kadafi’s regime. The country is still linked to the outside world by road to Tunisia and Egypt and by ferry to the Mediterranean island of Malta. In fact, Turkey, while banning all flights to and from Libya, made plans to set up an air service to Tunisia’s Jerba Island just off the coast of Libya.

In Washington, a senior State Department official said that in order to end sanctions, Kadafi must do more than turn over the two suspects in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988--the main issue that impelled the U.N. Security Council to vote for the sanctions. The Libyan leader must also cooperate in the investigation of the bombing of a French UTA airliner over West Africa in 1989 and must demonstrate that Libya has forsworn all terrorist activities.

“I’m not sure how long it would take them to give up international terrorism,” the State Department official said. “It seems to me, in a government as efficient as that one, they only need word from the man at the top.”

But the official made it clear that whatever Kadafi does must satisfy the United States. “The key thing is that these sanctions will remain in effect until we’re satisfied,” he said, “because obviously the United States, the United Kingdom and the French have a veto.”

As the Libyan Arab Airlines planes began testing the sanctions, the drama and danger of the exercise was underscored when Italian warplanes scrambled to intercept a Libyan Boeing 727 heading toward Italian airspace en route to Zurich. The Libyan plane turned back to Tripoli eight minutes before it was to enter Italian airspace.

Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan refused to allow the landing of Libyan commercial airliners and stopped their own planes from heading to Tripoli.

These countries acted despite the flare-up of anger over the sanctions in many Muslim communities. The Sudanese Parliament called the sanctions “an international crime” and passed a resolution urging the government of Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir not to take part in it. In Jordan, the pro-government newspaper Ash Shaab described the sanctions as “an idiotic and crazy American military assault against Libya.”

An effigy of President Bush was burned by Muslim demonstrators in New Delhi, and an effigy of Uncle Sam was burned by a crowd of Muslim women in Manila.

There were professions of hope that Libya might still be persuaded to end its confrontation with the United Nations and comply with the Security Council resolutions. On an official visit to Beijing, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he is still working to persuade Kadafi to give up the suspects in the Lockerbie bombing. “The fact that the sanction . . . has been applied . . . is not a reason not to continue my efforts to find a solution,” he said.

In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak also said he will continue working for a peaceful settlement.

“If there are no political solutions,” he said, “no one can predict how far the escalations will go.”

In London, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said the United Nations will have to consider sanctions against the Libyan sale of oil--which accounts for 90% of the country’s earnings--if the present sanctions fail.

But the senior State Department official said the U.S. prefers to wait at least 30 days until May 15, when governments are required to report to the United Nations about the steps they have taken.

“I think we would certainly want to see what the compliance was and make a determination at that point if we wanted to take further steps,” he said.

The Security Council quickly appointed a sanctions committee headed by Hungarian Ambassador Andre Erdos to monitor the effects of the sanctions and to approve any exceptions. An obvious exception would be flights to evacuate foreigners working in Libya. It was not clear whether Libya would let them leave or whether all wanted to leave.

In one ominous sign, a Korean Air Lines plane, en route to Tripoli to pick up 250 South Korean workers, was refused permission to land. It landed instead in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, and waited there to see if permission would come later.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus in Washington contributed to this report.

Libya Tests the Limits

The U.N. Sanctions Require:

* Nations to prohibit aircraft from using their territory or airspace on its way to or from Libya, unless it carries humanitarian supplies.

* The cutoff of all sales of military equipment to Libya.

* Nations to “significantly reduce” Libyan diplomatic staffs.

* Nations to eject or deny entry to Libyan terrorists.

Countries began barring Libyan jets from their airspace, but a defiant Libya tried to flout them by sending its jets into the sky:

* Italy scrambles warplanes to intercept a Libyan airliner.

* Egypt twice turns away Libyan jets.