Pan Am bombing suspects

• Sanctions unsettle African, Arab nations
• 'An imaginative solution'
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LONDON (CNN) -- Even though recent increased diplomatic activity had signaled a possible breakthrough in the Lockerbie airliner bombing case, the deadlock in the handover of the two Libyan suspects was really broken in August, when the United States and Britain made an about-face and publicly proposed new trial arrangements.

Late that month, the two nations suggested that the trial of suspects Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah be held in a neutral third country: the Netherlands.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and British also announced that international sanctions against Libya -- imposed by the United Nations in 1992 and tightened the following year after Tripoli refused to hand the men over -- would be suspended once the suspects were made available.

Before that announcement, Washington and London had insisted that the men be tried in either the United States or Scotland on charges of blowing up a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 with the loss of 270 lives.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, however, insisted he would only accept proceedings in a neutral country.

Sanctions unsettle African, Arab nations

African and Arab nations in turn were becoming increasingly uneasy about the U.N. sanctions imposed on Libya.

"By December last year, Cook and (Prime Minister Tony) Blair both felt that after so long, it was worth looking afresh at whether there were any ways of achieving a breakthrough," said one Cook aide.

"Gadhafi had always suggested he might go along with the idea of a trial in a third country, so Cook and Albright agreed they would look at putting him on the spot by going for a third country trial with a Scottish court."

Libya's agreement to hand over the two suspects is therefore in part a victory for Cook and Albright's new approach.

'An imaginative solution'

But it also reflects the West's worry about increasing tension with Arab and African states and indicates just how much damage the sanctions are doing to Libya's oil and gas industry.

"I don't think we'd want to characterize anything as a concession. Cook and Albright came up with an imaginative solution," the Cook aide said.

"There was no suggestion we did this under any kind of pressure, but obviously the Arab and African view on sanctions was a factor," he added.

In October 1997, South African attacked the Western approach over Lockerbie, saying no country could act in the role of "complainant, the prosecutor and judge at the same time."

This June, the Organization of African Unity decided its members would stop imposing sanctions in September unless the Security Council agreed to a trial in a neutral country.

Reuters contributed to this report.