TRIPOLI, 8 January 2004 — A senior Libyan official denied yesterday reports out of Israel that high-level, behind the scenes talks had recently been held over the prospect of forging diplomatic ties.
“Libyan authorities have looked into these reports and found nothing to them,” Deputy Foreign Minister Hassuna Shawsh told the state news agency JANA. Diplomatic sources in Israel said yesterday a senior aide to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom held talks late last month with a senior Libyan official about the prospect of forging diplomatic ties.
Shalom’s chief political advisor, Ron Prosor, was said to have met the unnamed Libyan Foreign Ministry official in secret talks in Paris. In response, Shawsh said, “whoever is circulating these reports should provide proof by stating the date and place of these meetings, as well as the people involved.
“International relations are not built on rumors and intrigues,” he said, but are instead “based on clarity and mutual confidence.” Shawsh added that “those who are spreading these rumors believe they are in the process of serving their interests but, quite the contrary, these rumors are detrimental to them.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the government was pursuing efforts to establish diplomatic relations with Libya and other Arab countries, without confirming the meeting in Paris.
“We have nothing to say concerning such a meeting,” spokesman David Saranga said.
Shalom himself said last week that dialogue with Tripoli was a possibility. “If Libya rejoins the family of nations and renounces its weapons (of mass destruction) Israel does not rule out dialogue with this country,” said Shalom.
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has been praised as a statesman by Western governments recently after abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
Qaddafi once advised Israelis to found a state in Alaska and said that “Palestine will be the graveyard of the Jews”.
Ephraim Sneh, an MP for the opposition Labour party and a former minister, told the radio yesterday that he had held talks in August last year with one of Qaddafi’s sons on the sidelines of a meeting in Europe also attended by Palestinian politicians.
“I have the impression that Libya has taken a strategic decision in announcing that it was abandoning its weapons of mass destruction and does not want to stop the process,” he said.
Sources close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were more circumspect. “There’s no doubt that there has been a change of tone in certain Arab countries after the American offensive in Iraq, the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and his capture,” one senior source said.
“Libya must be judged by its actions,” the source added, underlining that Ariel Sharon’s government’s policy is “identical” to that of the US administration.
