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U.S. delegation says Ghadafi has made 'a switch'

An American delegation that visited a Libyan nuclear site on Monday and met with Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi, described the landmark visit as 'very positive.'
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi accepts a plaque from Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. during a meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation in Tripoli Monday. From left are Candice Miller, R-Mich., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., Solomon Ortiz, D-TX, Weldon, Rodney Alexander, D-La., and Gadhafi.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi accepts a plaque from Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. during a meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation in Tripoli Monday. From left are Candice Miller, R-Mich., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., Solomon Ortiz, D-TX, Weldon, Rodney Alexander, D-La., and Gadhafi. AP
/ Source: The Associated Press

A U.S. Congressional delegation met with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and visited a nuclear site Monday as they wrapped up a landmark trip both sides hoped would improve relations between the two countries.

“We discussed the hope that we will achieve normal relations soon,” delegation leader, Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, said after the meeting.

Weldon, who met for 30 minutes with Gadhafi after a two-hour meeting between the Libyan leader and the entire delegation, said the discussions were “very positive.”

“The leader is doing the right thing,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas said Gadhafi made “no new pledges” during the meeting but that the delegation “complimented him for keeping up his program.”

The delegation’s visit comes amid improving U.S.-Libyan relations after decades of rancor.

Gadhafi said in an Italian newspaper interview published Monday that American and Libyan intelligence agencies may have worked together in the fight against terrorism.

“There are groups that are working against all of us,” Gadhafi told Rome’s La Repubblica daily. “It could be that there has been cooperation between secret services, in particular regarding Libyan citizens who fought in Afghanistan.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said Gadhafi “expressed his regret that a quarter-century has passed of isolation between our countries.”

“It’s just the first step,” Issa said of the meeting.

Nuke plant
Before meeting with Gadhafi, the delegation donned white smocks and shoe coverings to tour a nuclear reactor just east of Tripoli that is used for scientific research. U.S. and British experts are preparing to dismantle other nuclear sites used in Libya’s nuclear weapons programs, which Gadhafi recently renounced.

The lawmakers also toured the rubble of Gadhafi’s house, which was bombed by the United States in 1986. The attacks killed 37 people, including Gadhafi’s adopted daughter, in retaliation for the bombing of a German disco that killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman.

The United States imposed sanctions that year, accusing Libya of supporting terrorist groups. Ten years later, America said it would penalize the U.S. partners of European companies that did significant business in Libya and Iran.

In recent years, Gadhafi tried to end his international isolation, and has made a startling turnaround in the past year. He admitted his country’s involvement in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims’ families.

He also admitted he had tried to develop weapons of mass destruction — including a nuclear bomb — and invited U.N., American and British inspectors to inspect his weapons programs and dismantle them.

“I think clearly that Gadhafi is for real in that he has made this switch,” Issa told The Associated Press. “He has been a person of abrupt changes throughout his career.”

Economic ties?
After Libya admitted in September its involvement in the Lockerbie bombing, the U.N. Security Council voted to lift its sanctions, but the United States was proceeding more cautiously. Still, the U.S. lawmakers indicated that barring any changes of heart, diplomatic ties could soon be restored.

Libya is also counting on a restoration of economic ties. The sanctions have cost Libya more than $30 billion in lost business. Investment is especially needed for an oil industry that once made the North African country of about 5 million people a regional power.

The delegation’s arrival came on the heels of that of another American lawmaker. Representative Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, landed Saturday in the first visit by an elected U.S. official in 38 years. His office in Washington said he, too, met with the Libyan leader, although it released no details of the meeting.

The U.S. Navy jet that carried the Weldon-led delegation to Tripoli on Sunday was the first U.S. military aircraft to land in Libya in Gadhafi’s 35-year tenure as the country’s leader.

On Sunday, the delegation met with Libya’s prime minister, foreign minister and a delegation from the People’s Congress — the equivalent of a parliament. They also walked through a section of Tripoli and visited a farm owned by Gadhafi’s son, Seif el-Islam, who is seen as a possible successor to his father.

In addition to Weldon, Issa and Ortiz, the delegation includes Louisiana Democrat Rodney Alexander and Republicans Candice Miller of Michigan, Mark Souder of Indiana and Elton Gallegly of California.

Democrat Steve Israel of New York planned to join the delegation in Kuwait, which the Americans left for later Monday en route to Iraq and Afghanistan.