In the letter, Libya made arrangements for payment of appropriate compensation to the families of the 270 victims of the jumbo jet crash.
In a separate letter to the UN, the United States and Britain said they were prepared to agree to the lifting of UN sanctions on Libya. The president of the UN Security Council, Syrian Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe, said he expected a draft resolution to be submitted to the council on Monday.
Although most victims' relatives welcomed the letter and the terms of the compensation plan, some others said they would fight to maintain U.S. sanctions on Libya.
The dispute with France could also aggravate the situation. France has threatened to veto the lifting of sanctions unless Libya increases compensation to the families of 170 people who were killed in the bombing of a French UTA aircraft over Niger in 1989.
The White House said on Friday it would not oppose the lifting of UN sanctions but separate U.S. sanctions would remain in effect until Tripoli addressed concerns about what it called the country’s “threatening behavior.” The U.S. specifically cited Libya's "poor human rights record and lack of democratic institutions, its destructive role in perpetuating regional conflicts in Africa and its continued and worrisome pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their related delivery systems.”
Libya is desperate to get back into the international trading arena. The ending of sanctions could prove highly beneficial for the regime of President Muammar Qadhafi, which is trying to attract foreign investment for the country's oil industry and infrastructure projects such as rail and road networks. Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem said last month that Libya was ready to accept the return of U.S. companies into its oil industry.
Rapid world developments in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly the Palestinian crisis, Israel’s military operations in southern Lebanon, the end of the 1980-1988 Iraqi imposed war against Iran, and most significantly, the collapse of the Soviet Union, placed the Arab world and the Middle East in a critical situation. The Lockerbie incident provided the U.S., Britain, and Israel with a golden opportunity to confront one of the most radical states in the Arab world.
After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the resulting humiliation of the Arab world, many Arab states were compelled to participate in the peace negotiations with Israel in Madrid. The peace process entered a new phase in which Libya was labeled a significant opponent to peace and the main supporter of some extremist Palestinian groups. Obviously, the Libyan stance provoked the wrath of the U.S. and its allies. Hence the groundwork was prepared for serious political and economic measures against the country.
In a bid to isolate Libya in the international arena, force it to change its stance toward the extremist Palestinian groups, and bring it to the negotiating table, the Security Council started pressuring the country and finally put an official embargo on it in 1992.
A few years later, a Libyan agent, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was sentenced to life in prison by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in January 2001 for carrying out the Lockerbie bombing, while a second Libyan was acquitted. This put even more pressure on Libya.
Libya has been facing serious political and economic problems since the 1980s. The U.S. and British even attacked Qadhafi’s home in 1986, killing several civilians, including Qadhafi’s two-year-old adopted daughter Hana.
Political analysts maintain that Libya is apparently trying to move away from being a pariah state toward engagement with the West and the rest of the international community. But, the world is waiting to see whether the country will be able to escape unscathed or whether it has made a mistake which will only expose it to new dangers.
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MNA