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Australia Improves Ties With Libya
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer was expected to begin a two-day visit to Libya today to discuss increasing trade with the African country after Tripoli agreed to renounce weapons of mass destruction, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, May 14). “We have some commercial interests there that we’re prepared to promote and exploit now which when we had other grave concerns about Libya, we weren’t prepared to promote,” Downer said yesterday. “So this has opened up opportunities to build our relationship with Libya, and that’s a sensible thing to do after Libya has taken that decisive step to abandon its WMD programs,” he said Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile announced Monday that Australia plans to appoint a new diplomat to Libya soon — more than 15 years after Australia suspended diplomatic relations with Libya, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse, May 18). Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department indicated yesterday that Libya could soon be removed from a list of countries found not to be fully cooperating with U.S. antiterrorism efforts. “The decision to include Libya on this list comes in the context of an ongoing and comprehensive review of Libya’s record of support for terrorism. While this process is not complete, Libya has taken significant steps to repudiate its past support for terrorism. When our review of Libya’s overall record is complete, we will consult further with the Congress,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement (U.S. State Department release, May 18). The United States yesterday removed Sudan from the list of uncooperative countries, according to Agence France-Presse. The decision to remove Sudan and consider removing Libya, however, is mostly symbolic as both countries remain on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to a State Department official. “This basically strips away one layer of the sanctions onion for Sudan and says that that layer could be removed for Libya,” the official said. “It doesn’t green-light anything for either of them. They would have to come off the state sponsors list for that to happen,” the official added (Matthew Lee, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, May 18).
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