Progress Cited in Deal for Lockerbie Bombing Suspects

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi alone in a desert tent Saturday night and came away believing that he had made progress toward an agreement to extradite two suspects wanted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

“The talks have been fruitful and positive,” Annan said. “Libya has confirmed its seriousness and readiness to find a solution to the Lockerbie problem.”

Although both sides stopped short of saying they had closed the deal, the secretary-general and Libyan Foreign Minister Omar Mustafa Muntasser hinted at a joint news conference that final agreement to hand over the two suspects could come after a Tuesday meeting of the General People’s Congress of Libya.

“It will require time, but not an inordinate amount of time,” to complete matters, Annan told reporters.

“Wait and see,” said Muntasser, noting that the congress has authority over foreign affairs.

In Washington, deputy State Department spokesman James Foley said the United States is awaiting a briefing from Annan but is “disappointed” that Libya has not complied with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“Compliance means turnover of the two suspects for trial,” Foley said. “It’s been almost 10 years since the Pan Am 103 tragedy. This has gone on for far too long.”

The meeting with Kadafi was Annan’s latest adventure in high-stakes diplomacy and the most-watched test of his negotiating skills since he faced Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in February to defuse a looming military confrontation over U.N. weapons inspections.

Although he did not achieve the same clear success this time with Kadafi, Annan called the meeting “very positive” and “a quantum jump.”

“We are definitely moving in the right direction,” he said. But “in all these things, you have to wait for others to do what they say they are going to do.”

Nearly 10 years after the Pan Am bombing over Scotland that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans, Annan went to Libya hoping to persuade Kadafi to seal a proposed bargain in which the suspects would finally be transferred for trial in the Netherlands in exchange for suspension of U.N. sanctions that have barred air travel to and from Libya since 1992.

He urged the Libyan authorities to allow the trial to go forward for the sake of the peace of mind of the victims’ families.

During his visit, Annan, who flew to Libya from Tunisia, learned firsthand of the caprice and eccentricities of the Libyan state system headed by Kadafi, who led a people’s revolution in 1969.

Annan spent more than eight hours in meetings and lunch in the coastal Libyan city of Surt with Muntasser and lower-ranking officials before anyone even mentioned that it was time to see Kadafi. He also met privately with Blaise Compaore, the president of Burkina Faso, who happened to be visiting Libya, before the Kadafi meeting.

Kadafi had remained at an undisclosed encampment in the desert rather than coming to meet the head of the world body.

So it was 7:15 p.m., two hours after Annan had originally expected to be on his way back to Tunisia, that Annan was driven in a motorcade to see the leader.

The secretary-general was bundled into a military four-wheel-drive vehicle, where he bounced and skimmed across the trackless sands in the dark toward his rendezvous with Kadafi.

The meeting with Kadafi took place in a huge open tent--the size of two tennis courts--with only the Libyan leader, Annan and an interpreter present. Warmed by an open fire, they talked for an hour and a half.

Annan said later that the Libyan leader was still using a crutch from what has been described as an accident while exercising last summer.

He said Kadafi was in good spirits and had a good grasp of the issues in the case, but Annan would not reveal specifically what was said. Even before the meeting, Annan seemed to be steeling himself for the unexpected.

“This will be our first encounter, so I have no idea what sort of atmosphere there is going to be, what he is like, how he reacts. So it is going to be an interesting meeting,” Annan said.

Annan had tacked on the Libyan visit to a tour of Algeria and Tunisia because he was advised by the U.N. legal counsel, Hans Corell, that most issues related to the extradition of the suspects had been worked out and that the Libyans were close to agreeing.

Annan, who planned to travel to Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf today, saw his role as providing a high-level guarantee that the “clarifications” already granted to the Libyans would be carried out.

“I don’t intend to go there to negotiate, but to discuss, to clarify and, if need be, to persuade,” Annan said. “All the clarifications have been given to them. But I am prepared to go over them again if need be.”

The biggest stumbling block from the Libyan vantage point is where the suspects will be imprisoned if convicted. Libya is insisting that they not be jailed in Britain. The British and U.S. governments say they should be imprisoned in Scotland if convicted.

Annan, according to a U.N. source, told his Libyan hosts that he had no authority to negotiate the possible prison venue.

Annan’s difficulty in getting an immediate decision was foreshadowed Friday when the official Libyan news agency JANA said Kadafi was not authorized to make a deal with Annan. The news agency maintained that Kadafi does not really run the country.

Although technically true, that assessment is at odds with the reality as seen by most outside experts on Libya.

“Col. Moammar Kadafi is neither head of state nor head of government nor foreign minister,” said the official commentator of JANA on Friday. “He is the guide of the Sept. 1 [1969] revolution, which completely rules out any possibility of his reaching any accord, be it with the U.N. secretary-general or any other official in the world.”

Asked about the JANA statement, Annan said dryly: “I believe that Col. Kadafi has considerable authority.”

If Libya finally agrees to turn over the suspects, the U.N. Security Council has said it will suspend an air and arms embargo imposed after Libya’s failure to surrender the pair, Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah for trial.

The two men are suspected of planting the bomb that blew up aboard the Pan Am flight over the village of Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. The explosion killed all 259 people aboard and 11 people on the ground.

Libya had long resisted the two men’s extradition to either the United States or Britain and offered instead, through the Arab League, to let them be tried in a neutral country.

In August, as the 10th anniversary of the tragedy neared and support for the continuation of sanctions was crumbling among African and Arabic countries, Washington and London said they would accept the compromise.

Kadafi, however, began to raise objections. A long process of negotiation between Libyan and U.N. lawyers followed, leading to Annan’s trip, presumably to clinch the bargain.