U.S. to re-evaluate ban on travel to Libya

March 21, 2000
Web posted at: 9:07 p.m. EST (0207 GMT)

In this story: Bombing victims' families briefed 'Change can now be imagined' RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON -- The United States is sending a State Department team to Libya to determine if travel restrictions on U.S. citizens should be lifted, the State Department said Tuesday.

A statement from department spokesman James P. Rubin on Tuesday said that following the visit, the State Department will decide whether to remove restrictions on "the use of U.S. passports for travel to, in or through Libya."

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Washington has banned use of U.S. passports for travel to Libya since 1981 on grounds that conditions there are unsafe for Americans. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright renewed the ban last November.

A State Department official said a four-person team will travel to Libya on Wednesday and will spend a day visiting the airport, hotels, and talking with Americans living in Tripoli.

U.N. sanctions were imposed to force Tripoli to hand over Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, the two Libyan intelligence agents indicted in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. U.S. investigators charged that Fhimah, posing as an employee of Libyan Arab Airlines in Malta, had obtained luggage tags that enabled Megrahi to place a suitcase containing a bomb on board an Air Malta flight that connected with flight 103.

The Pan Am jetliner blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.

The U.N. sanctions, which included an air and weapons embargo, were suspended last April after the two men were handed over for trial later this year at a special Scottish court in the Netherlands.

Susan Cohen said she was one of about 15 parents of Pan Am 103 victims who were briefed by the State Department regarding the visit. Cohen, of Cape May Court House, New Jersey, said she was appalled by the decision to send the U.S. team to Libya. "This sends a signal to (Libyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi that we've changed our policy and we're ready to be friends," she said.

Jane Schultz, of a group representing 160 of the 189 Americans killed at Lockerbie, said, "the relatives are totally united in their shock. They're appalled. We feel like that if this goes through, the outcome of the trial could be affected," she said.

Schultz said the "moral and correct thing to do" would be for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to cancel it.

Rubin said the consular visit "is unrelated to the trial of the suspects of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103. It does not represent any change in the United States government position on the bombing or the need for full Libyan compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions."

The Security Council has called for Libya to pay appropriate compensation to families of the Pan Am 103 victims, cooperate with the investigation and trial, accept responsibility for the actions of its officials and "renounce and end support of terrorism and terrorist groups."

Rubin said increased non-American travel to Libya since the suspension of U.N. sanctions last year has raised questions about whether previous dangers continue to exist.

"We believe an objective answer requires an on-the-ground examination by consular officials," he said.

The announcement comes amid signs that Washington is softening its policy toward the oil-rich North African country.

"Change can now be imagined," said Ronald Neumann, a top aide in the State Department's Middle East bureau last November. But, he said, an accommodation with Libya "is not necessarily a near-term likelihood."

State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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ArabNet - Libya Government
CIA -- The World Factbook 1999 -- Libya
U.S. State Department - Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
United Nations

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