Libyan Foreign Minister Holds Talks With Top British Officials

Libya took additional steps toward normalizing relations with the West on Tuesday, sending its highest diplomatic mission to Britain in more than 20 years and discussing a meeting “as soon as convenient” between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who played host to Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abderrahmane Chalgam, told a news conference: “This truly is a historic visit.... This visit is tangible proof of the improving relations between Libya and the United Kingdom.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that the United States has a diplomat in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, for the first time in decades. Boucher said he expected Kadafi’s government soon would send a diplomat to Washington. The U.S. diplomat is working in an interests section in the Belgian Embassy.

“For the first time in a long time, we’ve got an American officer who’s been assigned to Tripoli and who is accredited under the protecting power, Belgium,” Boucher said at a briefing. “We do now expect diplomats in Tripoli on a regular and ongoing basis as work proceeds” to dismantle Libya’s nonconventional weapons program.

Libya announced Dec. 19 that it was renouncing efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. It has since turned over documents and other information about its weapons program to the United States.

Boucher said other steps toward normalized relations, such as easing travel and economic restrictions, were “being looked at as possibilities.” Ordinary U.S. citizens are still prohibited by the State Department from traveling to Libya.

Like the U.S., Britain had treated Libya as a pariah for the last two decades, not only because of Tripoli’s involvement in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland -- resulting in 270 deaths and still considered Britain’s largest mass murder -- but also because of the unresolved 1984 slaying of a policewoman outside the Libyan Embassy in London during an anti-Kadafi demonstration.

Under Kadafi, who came to power in 1969, Libya also had offered support to the Irish Republican Army and other groups espousing terrorism in Europe in the 1970s.

In London, Chalgam met with Straw and Blair, going over a long agenda of measures to clear up animosity between the countries and lay the foundation for normal relations.

Smiling warmly at his Libyan counterpart during their meeting at the Foreign Office, Straw said rapprochement had taken place slowly over the last decade and had reached a stage in which Britain would encourage other countries to tear down remaining sanctions against Kadafi’s regime.

Straw hailed as a “courageous step” Libya’s announcement that it was renouncing any future programs for developing weapons of mass destruction.

“It showed, too, that problems of proliferation can with goodwill be tackled through discussion and engagement,” Straw said.

The London talks came as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi met with Kadafi in Libya, the first Western leader to do so since the Dec. 19 announcement.

Asked by an Arab journalist whether Britain now saw Libya as a “good” country, Straw replied: “We have always regarded Libya as a good country. We regret the fact that there have been difficulties in the relationship, and we are now looking forward to putting those difficulties behind us.”

Chalgam said there had been a “breakthrough” with Britain and the United States, but he repeated Libya’s denials that it had bowed to pressure or made concessions when it renounced efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

He denied that fear of possible U.S. military action after the invasion of Iraq played a role in Tripoli’s decision. Rather, he said, Libya had never made a final commitment to a weapons of mass destruction program.

“We had the equipment. We had the material, and the know-how, and the scientists. We never decided to produce these weapons,” Chalgam said. “To have flour, water and fire does not mean you have bread.”

Chalgam said he delivered a letter from Kadafi to Blair, and Straw confirmed that a possible meeting between the two leaders was being discussed.

“We are hoping very much that a visit can be arranged as soon as convenient, but no date has yet been fixed,” Straw said.

Straw acknowledged that those who lost relatives and friends as a result of Kadafi’s policies might find it “profoundly difficult” to accept the rapprochement, but he hoped that they would understand.

“I think that they and the wider public will be able to see if it is in everybody’s interest for us to have normalized relations, as we are now doing, and to assist in every way we can for Libya becoming a full member of the international community,” he said.

However, the Press Assn., a British news agency, reported that an organization representing the country’s rank-and-file police was rejecting normalization of ties until Libya handed over for trial the person who fired on Yvonne Fletcher, the constable killed two decades ago. The Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents officers in London, said Libya still had “blood on its hands.”

A marksman inside the embassy fired on Libyan dissidents and fled the country when the embassy staff was evacuated a day later.

Straw promised “enhanced cooperation” to get to the bottom of the case. Chalgam said, “We are going to work on this issue as we are going to work on other issues -- with a spirit of cooperation, transparency and honesty.”

Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.