White House delays easing of Libya travel ban
Libyan prime minister said Tripoli wanted to 'buy peace'
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 put off plans to lift travel restrictions on Americans to Libya after the country's prime minister said Tripoli was not responsible for the Pan Am 103 bombing and accepted blame only to "buy peace" with the West, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.
Libya sent a letter to the United Nations in August 2003 saying it "accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials." It also agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims' families.
A Libyan intelligence officer was convicted of the bombing, which killed 270 people in December 1988.
Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem said in a BBC radio interview Tuesday that Libya agreed to pay the compensation only to lift U.N. sanctions and improve its relationship with the West.
"After the sanctions and after the problems we have [been] facing because of the sanctions, the loss of money, we thought that it was easier for us to buy peace, and this is why we agreed to compensation," Ghanem said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States is demanding a retraction.
"We would expect a retraction from the Libyan government," Boucher said, adding that the retraction would "certainly be a factor to take into account" as the United States considers its next moves with Libya.
The United States was supposed to lift restrictions on travel by Americans to Libya as a reward for Libya's decision to end its weapons of mass destruction program.
The United States imposed travel and other restrictions on Libya in the early 1980s. The sanctions were expanded after Libya was blamed in the 1986 disco bombing that killed two U.S. soldiers and a Turkish woman and wounded 229 others 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.
The sanctions were expanded again in the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, which cited Libya's failure to comply with U.N. resolutions, support of terrorism and efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Pamela Dix's brother Peter was killed in the bombing of the Pan Am flight. She said the prime minister's comments highlight unanswered questions.
"We see the comments as underlining of the fact we do not have the answers to the big questions: What was the motivation for the bombing? Who was behind it? Who paid for it? Why was it not prevented? What were the intelligence failures that allowed it to happen?" she told the UK Press Association news agency.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell extended the travel ban in November, but only for 90 days rather than the normal one-year period.
Tuesday's announcement was also expected to include an easing of other economic restrictions against Libya.
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 Libya who are removing weapons of mass destruction. The official is working out of the Belgian Embassy.
Libyan might send diplomats to the United States soon, officials said before the prime minister's comments.
The decision to lift the passport restriction on Americans traveling to Libya followed talks earlier this month in London, England, among Libyan, British and U.S. officials.
The talks addressed the progress Libya has made in keeping its pledge to hand over its weapons of mass destruction, and what gestures Tripoli could expect as a result.
In coming weeks, the United States is expected to send an American medical and hospital assessment team to address Libya's humanitarian situation and could welcome a team of Libyan educational specialists to the United States to explore future educational exchanges.
