• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Conservative leader questions timing of Blair`s visit to Libya

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, March 24, IRNA -- Britain`s opposition Conservative leader 
Wednesday questioned the timing of Prime Minister Tony Blair`s 
expected visit to Libya this week immediately after attending a 
memorial service for the terrorist victims in Madrid. 
"It is quite odd timing to go from a service which commemorates 
the victims of the biggest terrorist attack on Europe since 
Lockerbie, to go straight from there to Libya," Michael Howard said. 
He told BBC Radio 4`s Today programme that he imagined that 
Blair`s expected meeting with Muammar Gaddafi would "cause 
considerable distress to the families of the victims of Lockerbie." 
The British premier is reportedly planning to visit Libya on 
Thursday after travelling from Madrid to Lisbon for meetings with 
Portugal`s president and prime minister. 
Blair`s visit follows Libya`s decision to abandon any weapons of 
mass destruction programmes. It comes after last month`s trip to 
London by Foreign Minister Abdulrahman Shalgam for the highest-level 
bilateral talks since Gadaffi took over power 35 years ago. 
Unlike the Conservative leader, reports of the prime minister`s 
visit was welcomed by the families of the British victims of the 1988 
Lockerbie air disaster. 
Jim Swire from the UK Families Flight 103 campaign group said it 
was the "next step in a process which we have been campaigning for 
over the past few years." 
"It started with the reinstatement of the British Ambassador in 
Tripoli and the logical next step would be a prime ministerial visit 
to establish that Libya has been accepted back into the community of 
nations," he said. 
Swire, whose daughter was killed in the disaster, said the visit 
would "also greatly diminish the chances of a backsliding of support 
for terrorism, so we are greatly in favour of such a move." 
Pamela Dix, secretary of the group, also said she hoped the Prime 
Minister`s visit would help those who lost loved ones in the atrocity 
get closer to the truth. 
"Some of us have always said that we think it is much more 
productive to have dialogue with a country such as Libya rather than 
keeping them out in the cold," she said. 
HC/212 
End