EU ends sanctions against Libya and eases arms embargo

THE EU ended 11 years of sanctions against Libya and eased an arms embargo yesterday to reward the North African country for giving up plans to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"This is a turning point in relations with Libya," said French European Affairs Minister Claudie Haignere.

The UN sanctions were imposed in 1992 to force Tripoli to hand over two Libyans indicted for the 1988 bombing of an American airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

The Security Council suspended the sanctions after the two men were delivered for trial in 1999 and abolished them last year after Libya agreed to compensate the families of the Lockerbie victims as well as those of the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over Niger.

Diplomats said the EU foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, acted in accordance with a UN decision last year. The move reflected a significant warming of relations in recent months.

Britain was pushing for a complete normalisation of relations between the EU and Libya and a full lifting of the arms embargo, according to a senior official in London.

Friction remains over a Libyan court's conviction of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of deliberately infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the Aids virus.

They were sentenced to death in May after allegedly infecting the children as part of an experiment to find a cure for Aids.

Human rights groups allege Libya concocted the experiment story to hide unsafe practices in its hospitals and clinics.

Bulgaria has close ties with the EU and is to become a full member in 2007.

"We are very concerned about the situation of the Bulgarian citizens," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

He said the EU wants that court ruling to be reversed. The EU, like the United States, wants to improve relations with Libya now that Tripoli has scrapped its programme to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The Europeans are eager to invest in Libya's substantial oil reserves and obtain its cooperation in stopping the flow of illegal immigrants into Europe.

Separately, the foreign ministers approved an Italian request to ease the EU's own arms embargo imposed on Libya in 1986.

This will enable Libya to buy high-tech equipment to prevent the flow of illegal African migrants through Libya into Europe.