Grateful Blair ready to meet Gadafy

The Guardian ^ | January 06 2004 | Nicholas Watt

[knighthawk]

Tony Blair is ready to hold a historic meeting with Muammar Gadafy to offer his thanks to the Libyan leader for agreeing to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programme, it has emerged.

However, as Britain pledged to bring Libya "into the mainstream of the international community", Downing Street was given a blunt taste of the continuing threat of banned weapons when Syria declared that it has the right to develop WMD.

In his first British interview since Col Gadafy's surprise announcement last month, the Syrian president insisted that Damascus would retain the right to develop banned weapons as long as Israel retains undeclared WMD. "We are a country which is [partly] occupied and from time to time we are exposed to Israeli aggression," President Bashar Assad told the Daily Telegraph.

His remarks will come as a mixed blessing for the prime minister. He has courted President Assad, who is seen as a moderniser in Downing Street. On the one hand, Mr Blair will be able to say that such remarks confirm his warning that banned weapons present the major security threat of the 21st century. But President Assad's categorical insistence that he will make no move until Israel abandons its banned weapons gives the Mr Blair little room for manoeuvre.

The president's intervention came as Britain celebrated its diplomatic coup in persuading Libya to abandon its banned weapons. In a commons statement, the foreign secretary gave a strong hint that the prime minister would meet Col Gadafy.

As a first step, Mr Straw has invited his Libyan counterpart, Abdulrahman Shalgam, to visit Britain within weeks to discuss how to improve ties between London and Tripoli.

Praising Libya's pledge to uphold peace in the region, Mr Straw indicated that a Blair- Gadafy meeting was on the cards when he told MPs: "We have recognised that we now have corresponding responsibilities to enable Libya to come fully into the mainstream of the international community."

Government sources later indicated that preparations for such a meeting were at an early stage. Out of sensitivity for the relatives of the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the relatives of PC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot dead from Libya's "People's Bureau" in London in 1984, the meeting would probably take place in a neutral country. There would also have to be progress on a range of issues.

These include dismantling Libya's banned weapons programme. Mohamed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, last week led a delegation to Libya to discuss the dismantling of the development of a nuclear fuel cycle, which marked the early stages of building nuclear weapons.

MPs across the chamber welcomed the announcement by Libya, but the Tories criticised ministers for describing Col Gadafy as a statesman. Michael Ancram, the shadow foreign secretary, asked: "Do you really believe that with all the evidence of irrationality, dishonesty and totalitarianism, that on this occasion Gadafy can genuinely be trusted?"

[knighthawk]

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