Libya given full diplomatic status

WASHINGTON — The United States restored full diplomatic relations with Libya and removed it from the State Department's list of terrorism sponsors Monday, completing a remarkable turnabout with a country whose leader was once atop the U.S. enemies list.

The move signals to Iran and North Korea that a similar rewards await countries that scrap their weapons of mass destruction.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi voluntarily gave up his oil-rich country's nuclear weapons program in December 2003. Libya that year also took responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and agreed to pay as much as $10 million to the family of each of the 270 dead.

"Libya serves as an important model as we push for changes in policy by other countries, such as Iran and North Korea," said Assistant Secretary of State David Welch.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States will reopen its embassy, shuttered since 1979, and remove Libya from the list of state sponsors of terrorism within 45 days.

U.S. officials hope the move will encourage Libya to further open its economy, including its underdeveloped oil industry, which is potentially one of the world's largest. Libya's oil reserves ranked in the top 10 worldwide, but its production lags.

After the administration lifted U.S. economic sanctions in 2004, U.S. oil companies joined those doing business in Libya, and Libyan oil began arriving at U.S. refineries.

After Monday's announcement, analysts speculated that the Bush administration was eager to publicize the restoration of relations with Libya as a success story that showed, at a time of foreign-policy frustrations in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, that the United States can carry off diplomacy in the Middle East.

"The Bush administration has been looking for ways to show they can walk and chew gum, and solve problems in a sophisticated way, without resorting to bombing," said David Mack, a former senior State Department official who is now a vice president at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

The United States closed its embassy in Libya in 1980, at a time when U.S. officials viewed Gadhafi as one of the most dangerous men in the Middle East. The U.S. held Libya responsible for a series of deadly terrorist attacks in the 1980s, including the destruction of Flight 103 in which 270 people, mostly Americans, died.

President Reagan bombed Libya in 1981 and 1986. The United Nations and the United States each imposed sanctions on Libya, and the U.S. sought to isolate it diplomatically.

In 1999, Libya began to give ground, surrendering two suspects for trial in the Lockerbie bombing. In December, 2003, it took its biggest step, moving to dismantle its incipient unconventional weapons program and long-range ballistic missiles, leading to the breakthrough on sanctions in 2004.

Since then, the United States has held Libya out as a model of how countries with nuclear or chemical weapons programs should act. U.S. officials also have praised Libya for its cooperation in battling terror groups, including the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, an al-Qaida affiliate which has tried to overthrow the Algerian government.

Compiled from Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times reports