Libya: U.S. Congressman Meets Gadhafi for a Second Time This Year

After meeting Sunday with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) told reporters the two had discussed the issue of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were condemned to death in May by a Libyan court for allegedly infecting over 400 children with HIV.

Lantos sympathized with the victims and said the tragedy was not covered well by the international media and the international community, but he said he and other members of Congress had reservations about the verdict. European leaders have urged Libya to reverse the verdicts. An international medical team of AIDS specialists will visit Libya this week to survey the needs of the children and offer medical and care services, according to Lantos.

This is the second Libyan visit for Lantos, the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, since January when he became the first U.S. elected official to visit the nation since 1966. At his first meeting with Gadhafi, Lantos urged President George W. Bush to show "good faith" toward the leader. In April, Washington took steps to normalize trade and investment ties with Libya; in June, the United States opened a liaison office in Tripoli, 24 years after the U.S. Embassy there was closed.

U.S.-Libya relations have improved since 2003, when Gadhafi's government accepted responsibility and agreed to pay compensation for the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Libya also agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs and allow U.S. and UK inspectors to visit the facilities. Progress in U.S.-Libyan relations was faster and more comprehensive than Lantos expected; all pending issues between the nations could soon be solved, he said, with full diplomatic relations restored by next year.

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