Tripoli, 01 Sept-(ANA)-Libya has hinted for the first time that it is considering compensating the families of IRA victims in recognition that it armed the terrorists.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi supplied arms and explosives to Irish republican paramilitaries during the Troubles and the recent release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, has seen renewed calls for an apology and compensation from Tripoli for its role in the IRA killings.
In a rare interview with a top Libyan official yesterday, the deputy minister for foreign affairs indicated that the IRA compensation claims were part of on-going discussions between Tripoli and London and that they could be approaching some form of agreement.
Asked what was happening with the claims, Mohammed Siala, the Secretary for International Co-operation, said: "It is a special case. We have a good understanding with the UK."
However, Mr Siala suggested that families may still have a wait ahead of them, adding: "Things have not matured yet."
Last week's release of Megrahi has sparked a storm of protest in the US and UK, with the British Government fending off accusations that it handed him over in return for lucrative oil and gas deals from Libya.
Both sides have denied any deal. However, the revelation that the Government had declared Megrahi's release to be in the UK's "overwhelming interest" two years ago has heaped pressure on London.
The Libyan minister also said that any prospect of progress in bringing the killer of WPC Yvonne Fletcher to justice would depend on co-operation from the British Government over allegations that MI6 endorsed an assassination attempt on Col Gaddafi.
Asked about repeated attempts to extradite Libyan suspects in Ms Fletcher's killing, Mr Siala replied by insisting that Britain "had tried to kill Gaddafi" in a botched bombing in 1996.
"These two cases are linked together," said Mr Siala, who added there could be no progress on the investigation into the killing without new information on the alleged UK plot. "We're waiting for information from the UK," he said.
The constable was shot dead while policing a demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. The killing remains one of the biggest pieces of unfinished business between the two trading partners since diplomatic ties were restored.
Allegations that Britain funded a failed attempt by a Libyan Islamic extremist group on the Libyan leader's life were first made by a former MI5 agent, David Shayler, in 1998. The renegade spy alleged that a wing of MI6 endorsed a plot to kill Col Gaddafi but that agents placed explosives under the wrong car in the Libyan leader's motorcade in February 1996, killing six bystanders.
The then foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind dismissed the claims and his Labour successor Robin Cook also denied the rogue agent's allegations. (ANA)
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