Rice Meets With Libyan Leader

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Friday with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, marking the first trip to that country by a U.S. secretary of state in more than 50 years. The first thing he asked was for the latest news on the hurricanes plaguing U.S. coasts in recent weeks.

Upon her arrival, Rice met with the Libyan foreign minister and then toured the new U.S. Embassy. Afterward she said, "We are working on a trade and investment agreement, a framework, which will allow the improvement of the climate for investment, which I know very many American firms wish to do. She called the meeting a "good start" toward establishing a "positive relationship" with Libya.

Rice and Gadhafi met in a reception room at the Libyan Leader’s compound. Gadhafi was wearing a white robe and a black fez but not his trademark dark sunglasses. He shook the hands of the male members of Rice's staff but not Rice, instead offering the traditional greeting of his hand over his heart for her. Muslim men are prohibited from shaking hands with women to whom they are not related.

After their meeting, Rice joined Gadhafi, who once called her "Leeza ... my darling Black African woman," in a traditional Muslim evening meal breaking the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Last year in an interview with Al-Jazeera, Gadhafi suggested Rice ran the Arab world with which he has sometimes had harsh differences. "I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders," he said. "I love her very much ... because she's a Black woman of African origin." The two are expected to meet in the leader's Bedouin tent he favors for high-profile meetings.

Rice's visit marks a 180-degree turn in relations between Washington and Tripoli, which for more than three decades have been marked by personal animosity and insults, Libyan terror attacks and U.S. airstrikes. Libya's transformation from being dubbed a "state sponsor of terrorism" to a member of the U.N. Security Council represents a rare foreign policy success for the Bush administration in its last months in office.

Rice acknowledged that Libya is a place that is changing. The United States restored relations with Tripoli in 2005, after Gadhafi's decision to abandon his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, renounce terrorism and compensate victims of the 1986 La Belle disco bombing in Berlin and the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. It also dropped Libya from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list, the only country except for Iraq to have been removed. Since then, several U.S. officials have visited Tripoli and Rice has met several times with her Libyan counterpart. The United States opened its embassy in Tripoli in 2006.

The U.S. has praised Libya's cooperation in fighting terrorism in North Africa, where al Qaeda has been gaining a foothold. U.S. officials also say Gadhafi has prevented Libyan and other foreign fighters from traveling to Iraq to join insurgent movements. At the United Nations, Libya has also voted with the U.S, to crack down on Iran's nuclear program and has sought to play a helpful role in the crisis in Darfur.
Yet relations between the two countries face strains over Libya's poor human rights record and final settlement of claims from the La Belle and Lockerbie bombings.

The Bush administration has expressed their wishes to move forward with a new relationship with Libya. The deal paves the way for greater access by American companies to Libya's booming economy, in particular its vast oil reserves, the ninth largest in the world. European companies have had much greater access to Libya's energy sector, but Libyan officials say the improved relations with the United States will result in more deals with American oil companies, including exploring vast areas of the country that remain untapped. The country's growing banking, infrastructure and telecommunications sectors also offer enormous opportunities for American investors.

Secretary of State Rice will travel throughout North Africa after leaving Tripoli, stopping in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. But it is the visit to Libya that the State Department recognizes will be the most talked about.