Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadafy today made his first trip to Europe in 15 years as he seeks to improve ties with EU nations.
He pulled up in a white limousine at the European Commission, with his foreign and trade ministers, to discuss "full normalisation" of relations and entry to the aid and trade programme the EU runs with countries around the Mediterranean, including Israel.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is welcomed by European Commission President Romano Prodi
Dressed in a brown cloak and black cap, he waved and gave a clenched fist salute to a crowd of onlookers before entering the building in Brussels.
As he paused to shake hands with Commission President Romano Prodi, a man rushed forward to try to hand him a letter before being hustled away by a bodyguard. A couple of Col Gadafy's trademark female bodyguards rushed to his side.
The landmark trip resulted from what the EU termed Libya's "remarkable progress" in shedding its rogue nation status, including abandoning its nuclear weapons programme and settling the Pan Am and UTA airliner bombing cases.
The 1988 bombing of the Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, killed 270 people and the French UTA airliner bombing over the Niger desert killed 170 people in 1989.
The United States last week lifted most of its commercial sanctions on Libya but trade restrictions with Europe remain.
EU and Belgian officials said human rights would be raised in the context of Libya's aspiration to join the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
Col Gadafy's last trip to Europe was in 1989, when he delivered a disjointed harangue against Jews and the US dollar at a summit of non-aligned nations in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
AP