Libya wants US Rice in Darfur peace talks

September 26, 2007 (NEW YORK) — Libya has made clear it wants U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to attend an October meeting it will host on Darfur but she was noncommittal because of a heavy travel schedule, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

U.S.-Libyan ties have warmed since Libya gave up weapons of mass destruction in 2003 but have been held back by the absence of final settlements resolving the 1986 bombing of a German disco and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Libya, implicated in both incidents, agreed to pay the families of the Lockerbie victims $10 million per victim but has not made the final payment. It has not paid compensation for U.S. victims of the La Belle disco bombing.

The U.S. official said Washington had not set any conditions but would like to see some progress on these issues ahead of a visit by Rice, who would be the highest-level U.S. visitor to the country since 1953.

“They made very clear she’d be very welcome there,” said the U.S. official of the late October meeting that Libya is hosting on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur in Western Sudan.

“She didn’t react specifically to that because … our schedule is sort of pressed,” added the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the matter in public.

Rice is expected to travel heavily as she seeks to lay the ground work for a Middle East peace conference the United States plans to host later this year, making attendance at the Libya meeting in late October difficult.

The Darfur problem dates back to early 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms, accusing the government of not heeding their plight in the remote, arid region. Khartoum mobilized Arab militia, known locally as Janjaweed, to quell the revolt.

The Janjaweed embarked on a campaign of killing, pillaging and rape. In the past year rebel groups have fought each other and also attacked civilians.

In 2004, the United States called the violence genocide, a term Khartoum has rejected.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died during the Darfur conflict and 2.5 million have been expelled from their homes in more than four years of strife. Sudan says 9,000 people have died.

(Reuters)