In May 15 this year, the United States announced its long-anticipated decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya. This decision will pave the way for Libya’s removal from the US list of states sponsoring terrorism and harbouring terrorists.

In addition, the country’s name will be removed from the annual certificate of countries not cooperating fully with US anti-terrorism efforts. The US Senate is expected to pass these preconditions to the full diplomatic restoration of ties by July 1.

The restoration of ties between these two countries — for the first time since 1979 — comes against a backdrop of ongoing closed-door negotiations since 1999 between Libya and the international community over its alleged role in the Lockerbie bombing.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi had been accused by the international community of being behind the terrorist bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, which killed 270 people. This came as a response to the 1986 bombing by US jets of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and military bases — which resulted in the death of Gadaffi’s daughter — following the country’s alleged role in a Berlin disco bombing that killed US troops.

After years of defying United Nations sanctions and international isolation, Gadaffi surprised the international community when he agreed to send two Libyan secret-service agents accused directly implicated in the bombing to a special court in The Netherlands in 1999.

Libya continued its rapprochement with the West following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. Fearing a similar predicament that his fellow dictator Saddam Hussein faced in Iraq and following the regime change in Afghanistan, Gadaffi capitulated to international pressure in December 2003 by declaring his intension to abandon biological, chemical and nuclear weapons research.

At the end of December 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency ended its visit to the country. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, declared that his inspectors had been allowed to visit four previously unseen nuclear facilities around Tripoli. Libya also began to cooperate closely in US anti-terrorism campaigns.

In addition, the country started delivering on its promise to pay compensation to the relatives and families of the victims of the infamous Pan Am flight while taking responsibility for the attack for the first time. Initially the $2,7-billion compensation offer was agreed to be paid in three stages: 40% to be handed over when UN sanctions were dropped; another 40% when American sanctions followed suit; and the remaining 20% when Libya was removed from the US State Department’s list of sponsors of international terrorism.

Libya’s compliance with the international community on resolving the Lockerbie bombing, the dismantling of its weapon programmes and the state-funded sponsorship of terrorism and terrorist groups around the world, and the subsequent lifting of sanctions and normalisation of relations have been greatly welcomed.

For much of the mid-1980s and 1990s, Libya was looked upon as a pariah state by governments around the world. The deepening economic sanctions continued to hurt the Libyan economy, heavily dependent on oil exports and American mining technology. The country produced approximately 1,6-million barrels of oil a day during much of this period, half of its 1970 peak of 3,3-million barrels a day. However, with normalisation of relations with the US, it expects this to increase to 2,1-million barrels a day in five years’ time.
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