Official: U.S. to lift travel restrictions to Libya
From Elise Labott
CNN Washington Bureau
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Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has agreed to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration will lift nearly 20-year-old U.S. travel restrictions to Libya to reward Tripoli for ending its weapons of mass destruction programs, an administration official said Monday.
"We'll be rolling it out tomorrow," the official said.
In November, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell extended the travel ban for 90 days rather than the usual one-year extension. The measure comes up for review Tuesday.
Tuesday's announcement also could include an easing of other economic restrictions against Libya, the official said.
In 1982, the United States banned imports of Libyan oil and some U.S. exports to the country following the deterioration of relations.
U.S. sanctions were expanded after Libya was blamed in the 1986 disco bombing that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman in what was then West Berlin. A U.S. ban on commercial contracts with Libya and travel-related activities to the nation were part of the expanded sanctions, which also included a prohibition on direct import and export trade.
In an interview Friday with the Knight-Ridder newspaper syndicate, Powell said that the Libyans "are doing everything they said they would do."
"We're very pleased with the progress," Powell said, "and we're anxious to move and move as quickly as we can, consistent with what they're doing."
This month the United States dispatched a diplomat to Tripoli, establishing the first U.S. diplomatic presence in Libya in decades. (Full story)
The diplomat was sent to assist U.S. experts in the north African country who are removing weapons of mass destruction from Libya. The official is working out of the U.S. interests section in the Belgian Embassy.
In the Knight-Ridder interview, Powell said the diplomatic presence will "eventually go into something more permanent."
Libyan diplomats shortly could be in the United States, working out of their interests section, officials have said. The United Arab Emirates is currently the Libyan protective power in the United States.
The decision to lift the passport restriction on Americans traveling to Libya followed talks this month in London among Libyan, British and U.S. officials.
The discussions addressed the progress Libya has made in keeping its pledge to hand over its weapons programs and what reciprocal gestures Tripoli could expect as a result.
In coming weeks, the United States is expected to send a medical and hospital assessment team to address Libya's humanitarian situation and could welcome a team of Libyan educational specialists to explore future educational exchanges.
"The whole issue of travel permits, sanctions, relief and all the rest of that is laid out in the plan," which was discussed in London, Powell said Friday.
The Bush administration has said the United States will continue its assistance to Libya in dismantling its weapons programs and could support economic modernization and other reforms in the country.
Libya has been trying to end its international isolation for several years.
Last year it agreed to pay $2.7 billion to relatives of the 270 people killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up by a Libyan agent in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Early this year, it also agreed to pay $170 million in compensation to the families of 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner.
Easing sanctions could allow U.S. oil companies, including Oasis Group, which includes Marathon Oil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Amerada Hess Corp., to resume activities in Libya, which they abandoned when expanded U.S. sanctions forced them to pull out in 1986.
European oil firms such as France's Total and Italy's Agip Group have exploited the lack of competition from the United States to sign lucrative deals in Libya, which produces about 1.4 million barrels a day and is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
