Military

DATE=9/12/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-N / LIBYA VOTE (S)

NUMBER=2-307436

BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN

DATELINE=NEW YORK

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The United Nations Security Council has lifted sanctions imposed against Libya for a 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Peter Heinlein in New York reports France and the United States abstained from the vote.

TEXT: The Security Council vote came fifteen years after Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the skies over Lockerbie. The plane was en route from London to New York. All 259 passengers and crew on board were killed, along with 11 people on the ground.

Earlier this year, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing and set up a fund to compensate the victims' families.

France had threatened to veto the resolution, but instead abstained. That change came after Libya agreed to an increase in an earlier settlement for relatives of the victims of a separate 1989 French airliner bombing, also blamed on Libya.

The United States also abstained. In a statement, however, deputy U-S ambassador James Cunningham cautioned that the abstention should not be viewed as an endorsement by Washington that Muammar Gadhafi's government has rehabilitated itself. (Signed)

NEB/NYC/PFH/RH/FC