TRIPOLI (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was due Friday to make the first visit to Libya by the top US diplomat since 1953 and meet Libyan leader Colonel Moamer Khadhafi.
Eager to show Iran and North Korea how they could benefit from a rapprochement with Western nations, Rice will use the visit to send a clear message of the US government's approval for Libya's commitment to abandon its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.
Rice's visit, the first by a US secretary of state in 55 years, marks the full renewal of relations with Tripoli after they were suspended in 1981, when the US called Libya a supporter of terrorism.
"The secretary's visit to Libya signifies a new chapter in US-Libya bilateral relations," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said ahead of Rice's three-day trip that will also take in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Portugal.
The last US secretary of state to visit Libya was John Foster Dulles, who met with Libya's ruler, King Idris Senussi, in 1953.
"It's also an important milestone in marking the success of this administration's nonproliferation policy," McCormack said.
Kadhafi announced in December 2003 that his country was renouncing weapons of mass destruction following months of secret talks with the United States and Britain.
"Libya is an example that, if countries make a different set of choices than they are making currently, they can have a different kind of relationship with the United States and the rest of the world, that we will follow through on our commitments."
McCormack also said that Rice will meet with Libyan leader Colonel Moamer Khadhafi, who has hailed the end of his regime's long estrangement from the United States.
"The whole business of the conflict between Libya and the United States has been closed once and for all," Kadhafi earlier this week in the speech marking the 39th anniversary of his overthrow of the country's Western-backed monarchy.
"There will be no more wars, raids or acts of terrorism," said Kadhafi, whose support for a raft of anti-Western militant groups in the 1980s prompted then US president Ronald Reagan to describe him as a "mad dog".
Rice's visit comes less than a month after the two governments reached an agreement on a plan to compensate US victims of Libyan attacks and Libyan victims of US reprisals.
The deal notably focused on the families of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland -- the deadliest attack blamed on Kadhafi's regime.
But it also covered victims of several US air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi on April 16, 1986, in which 41 people were killed, including an adopted daughter of Kadhafi.
The compensation accord, signed August 14, was one of the final pieces of the diplomatic puzzle allowing the full normalisation of relations.
Rice plans to discuss the war on terror and the conflicts in Chad and Sudan with the Libyan leader, according to McCormack.
She also plans to raise the issue of human rights with him, including the case of dissident Fathi al-Jahmi, who has been held since 2004 for criticising the government.
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