A delegation of UK politicians is holding more talks in Libya today over compensation for victims of IRA violence in Northern Ireland.
The cross-party group of three MPs and three members of the Lords met a number of officials from Colonel Gaddafi’s regime to discuss the bid to secure financial redress for Libya’s role in arming the republican paramilitaries during the Troubles.
Since arriving in the north African state on Saturday, they have had discussions with the Libyan minister for Europe, Abdulati Alobidi, and the British ambassador in Libya, Vincent Fean.
Meetings were also convened with the speaker of the General People’s Congress of Libya and the mayor of Tripoli.
Included in the delegation are Democratic Unionist MPs Jeffrey Donaldson and Nigel Dodds.
A DUP spokesman said the talks were continuing today.
“Further meetings are scheduled where both Mr Dodds and Mr Donaldson will be making a strong case for the thousands of victims of IRA terrorism in Northern Ireland,” he said.
Semtex explosives supplied by Libya were one of the IRA’s most lethal weapons in its decades-long terror campaign.
Links between the IRA and Muammar Gaddafi are thought to stretch back as far as 1972 and Libya is understood to have supplied the republican group with Czech-made Semtex in the 1980s.
The parliamentarians will return to the UK tonight.
PA