White House to lift travel ban against Libya

The White House is to ease a ban on American travel to Libya in response to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s promise to stop his nuclear weapons programme.

However, most tough sanctions will not be lifted right away, US officials say.

Reviving US travel to Libya would help Gaddafi emerge from semi-isolation and give American corporations a chance again to do lucrative business legally in the North African country’s rich oil fields.

The Bush administration already has decided to send a US diplomat to Tripoli after a quarter-century of icy distance. It is also thinking about letting Libyan students return to American universities while 10 to 15 US and British experts in the country oversee the dismantling of Libya’s nuclear weapons programme.

Meanwhile, US and British officials in a series of meetings had devised a schedule of reciprocating with further concessions as weapons programmes were ended, said a senior US official.

The warming of relations with Libya is designed partly to reward Gaddafi but also to encourage other countries with serious weapons programmes to give them up and establish trade with the United States.

Even so, Secretary of State Colin Powell said recently he still considered Libya a supporter of terror. The country is expected to remain on the State Department’s list of seven branded countries, which limits US economic and diplomatic traffic with them.

US sanctions have hurt Libya’s economy for decades. The two-decade-long ban on the use of US passports for travel there was extended only last November, but Powell said it would be reviewed at 90-day intervals. The ban originated in 1981 when the United States cut diplomatic relations with Libya.

Libya’s decision in December to end its nuclear weapons programme as well as plans to develop other weapons of mass destruction boosted the Bush administration’s campaign against the proliferation of dangerous technology.

A ring run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is suspected of delivering sensitive weapons secrets to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly other countries over several years.

Libya is in the midst of dismantling its nuclear and missile programmes and has shipped parts weighing thousands of pounds to the United States for storage and conversion to peaceful uses.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said recently: ”As the Libyan government takes these essential steps and demonstrates its seriousness, good faith will be returned.”

Asked yesterday if the travel ban was being eased, Boucher replied: “If I say something tomorrow, I will say it tomorrow, not today.”