US and Libya make peace

THE US and Libya have sealed a historic turnaround after decades of terrorist killings, retaliation, suspicions and insults.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a peacemaking visit yesterday to Libya's mercurial strongman, Muammar Gaddafi.

"The relationship has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now and I think tonight does mark a new phase," Ms Rice said after a dinner at Mr Gaddafi's official Bab el-Azizia residence.

"We did talk about learning from the lessons of the past," Ms Rice said. "We talked about the importance of moving forward.

"The United States, I've said many times, doesn't have any permanent enemies."

Ms Rice is the highest-ranking US official to visit Libya in half a century.

The US considers Mr Gaddafi rehabilitated since the days former US president Ronald Reagan called him the "mad dog of the Middle East".

In 2003 the Libyan made the surprise decision to renounce terrorism and give up weapons of mass destruction.

His Government has also agreed to resolve legal claims from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terror attacks that bore Libyan fingerprints.

"Libya has changed, American has changed, the world has changed," Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said after a meeting with Ms Rice.

"Forget the past."

Mr Gaddafi and Ms Rice's small talk yesterday belied almost 30 years of dismal US-Libyan relations, which hit their low point in 1986 when Mr Reagan ordered an airstrike that killed Mr Gaddafi's baby daughter.

The US withdrew its ambassador from Libya in 1972.