America.gov (Washington, DC)
Merle D. Kellerhals Jr.
19 November 2008
A telephone call between President Bush and a world leader is a common enough event to not merit much attention, but when the president called Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi November 17, it represented a remarkable turnaround in U.S.-Libyan relations.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed November 17 the two had spoken. Bush wanted to express his satisfaction with a $1.5 billion payment that Libya made to settle a long-running dispute over compensation for victims of Libyan terrorism in the 1980s.
Bush and Qadhafi "discussed that this agreement should help to bring a painful chapter in the history between our two countries closer to closure," Johndroe said in a prepared statement, according to news reports.
The money comes from a $1.5 billion fund for U.S. victims of Libyan-linked terrorism in the 1980s that Libya completed paying in October. The money will go to the families of American victims of the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the victims and families of victims of the 1986 bomb attack on a Berlin disco. Funds left after they are compensated will be used to settle claims for other deaths, injuries and damage caused by Libyan agents.
U.S. Ambassador David Welch negotiated a comprehensive agreement between the United States and Libya this year to settle all terrorism-related claims from the 1980s. Welch is the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
"While we will always mourn the loss of life as a result of past terrorist activities, the settlement agreement is an important step in repairing the relationship between Libya and the United States," Johndroe's statement said. "Libya has taken important steps on the road to normalizing its relations with the international community, beginning with its renunciation in 2003 of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction."
"The United States will continue to work on the bilateral relationship with Libya, with the aim of establishing a dialogue that encompasses all subjects, including human rights reform and the fight against terrorism."
Since the compensation agreement was reached, the United States has established a trade and commercial office in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. And in early September, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became the most senior U.S. official to visit Libya in more than a half century. (See "Rice Makes Historic Visit to Libya.")
The comprehensive agreement also accounted for 41 people Libya said were killed when U.S. air strikes hit Benghazi and Tripoli in 1986 in retaliation for the attack in Berlin.
At the November 18 State Department daily briefing, spokesman Sean McCormack said the relationship with Libya has come a considerable distance. "But it has a long, long way to go, specifically in terms of freedoms, universally recognized freedoms, in Libya. We're going to continue to work on those issues."
"Libya has done much of what we have asked it to do to change the relationship," McCormack said. "And Libya has demonstrated through its actions that it is willing to take tough steps in order to change the relationship."
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