UNITED NATIONS, 19 August 2003 — Britain asked the Security Council yesterday to end UN sanctions on Libya, but France said the book could not be closed on the 1988 Lockerbie bombing until the North African state offered more money for victims of a 1989 attack on a French airliner.

British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said he sent the Council a draft resolution to lift the sanctions imposed on Libya after the midair bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. Diplomats said it could come up for discussion as early as tomorrow.

But France, which has veto power in the 15-nation Security Council, said the sanctions could not be lifted until its own demands on the Tripoli government were resolved.

A Council vote cannot be scheduled until Libya puts an expected $2.7 billion into a special account to compensate the families of the 270 people killed in the midair bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, Council diplomats said.

That could come as early as today but may also slip later in the week, they cautioned.

That gives France — which has threatened to veto the resolution, according to the United States — more time to press Libya to come up with more money for the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner over Niger in which 170 died.

Libya in 1999 provided just $36 million in compensation in connection with that bombing, resulted in payouts of at most $33,780 per victim, according to a French group representing the UTA victims.

But in a deal with Britain and the United States, Libya has agreed to pay the Lockerbie families up to $10 million each in compensation.

France insisted yesterday that Libya must pay more compensation to the victims, but stopped short of a full threat to block the UN resolution to lift sanctions against Libya.

A new round of talks between Libyan authorities and families who lost relatives on the UTA plane has made “important progress,” the Foreign Ministry said, but has so far yielded no breakthrough.

“France, in the name of fairness, wants another agreement to be quickly reached between the UTA victims and Libyan authorities,” said ministry spokeswoman Cecile Pozzo di Borgo.

For France, it remains imperative that such a deal be reached before sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992 by the UN Security Council are lifted, she said.

Diplomats said Paris was under tremendous domestic pressure to come up with something more from Libya for the UTA victims.