FRANCE: French objections could still delay a long-awaited $2.7 billion (€2.4 billion) settlement agreement between Libya and the families of 270 victims who died when Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
Officials in Washington are concerned France may be considering using a veto to block any attempt to remove United Nations sanctions against Libya until it offers greater compensation to victims of a separate air disaster.
Libya is expected to deliver a letter to the UN accepting blame for the downing of Pan Am flight 103. The letter was part of an agreement the country hammered out with lawyers representing the families of the 270 Lockerbie victims earlier this week that would entitle them each to up to $10 million.
The settlement is to be paid in tranches, with Libya transferring the first $4 million after UN sanctions are lifted. An additional $4 million would be paid if US sanctions were lifted and then a final $2 million if the US removed Libya from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The French have argued that families of the 170 passengers on a UTA flight which exploded over Niger in 1989 should be awarded compensation equal to that of the Pan Am victims.
Libya never formally accepted responsibility for the attack, although it did agree to a settlement which paid the victims' families about $33 million.
The French foreign ministry yesterday reiterated a previous assertion that it was determined to win equal treatment for the UTA victims. France had been expected to abstain from a UN vote, which may be held as early as next week, along with the US, according to officials in Washington.
However, a person familiar with the settlement negotiations said yesterday that the French were now mulling a formal veto.
The US State Department would not comment on a report that the Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, spoke to the French Foreign Minister, Mr Dominique de Villepin, yesterday to express his worry that the French would undermine a long and delicate negotiation.
The possible French delay highlighted a number of potential pitfalls for the long-awaited settlement agreement. Members of the Bush administration are understood to harbour deep misgivings about Libya, despite its denunciation of terrorism. The administration is unlikely to remove US bilateral sanctions any time soon.
President Ronald Reagan barred US companies from doing business with Libya in 1986. The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act was passed a decade later, limiting the amount of money which foreign companies could invest there without facing US penalties.
The Libyan leader, Gen Moamar Gadafy, insisted in a Newsweek interview earlier this year that weapons of mass destruction were of no use to Libya, which also could not afford to develop them.