Posted on 12/24/2003 6:38:12 AM PST by Pokey78
DUBAI (Reuters) - A leading Arab newspaper has quoted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son as saying Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush will visit the North African country early next year.
The London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat said Saif al-Islam told the paper in a telephone interview that Blair would visit Tripoli at the beginning of next year, adding that he did not expect a U.S. trade embargo on his country to last long.
"This will be followed by a visit by U.S. President George Bush, and I expect it (the Bush visit) after the American embargo is raised. I don't think the embargo will last any more than three months at most," Gaddafi's son was quoted on Wednesday as saying
In Tripoli, Libya's official Jana news agency said Foreign Minister Abderrhmane Chalgam had received an invitation from his British counterpart Jack Straw to visit London. It gave no date.
A spokeswoman in Blair, asked about the Asharq al-Awsat report, said only: "We do not comment on the prime minister's movements for security reasons."
Commenting on the Jana report on a visit by Chalgam, a spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "No decision has been taken. We will be looking at the matter in the New Year."
There was no immediate comment in Washington on Bush's plans.
Gaddafi's oil-rich state, long on the U.S. list of sponsors of terrorism, said last week it was abandoning plans to build an atomic bomb and other weapons of mass destruction. It now wants trading benefits, including an end to U.S. sanctions.
"(The United States) has pledged to protect us from any aggression," Saif al-Islam said.
"There have been consultations in the past on various security and military agreements with the Americans which will even lead to joint military manoeuvres in the future."
Saif al-Islam, whom analysts say Gaddafi is grooming to succeed him, said Libya's plans to develop long-range missiles never got beyond the preliminary stages.
"These were workshops...which didn't get to an advanced stage to produce weapons of 800 km range, for example. But it will all stop in Libya now, as will projects to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," he said.
"(Libya) has factories to produce missiles, most of which are short-range Scud-B, of about 300 km range, and these will stay...They were made through cooperation with the former Soviet Union and then with North Korea," Gaddafi's flamboyant young son added.
Libya, once at the vanguard of anti-U.S. radicalism, has said it is a long way from having nuclear weapons and has no long-range missiles. Washington says Libya has acknowledged cooperating with North Korea to develop Scud missiles.
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