CAIRO, 12 January 2004 — Travel between Egypt and Libya has plummeted since Tripoli imposed visas, newspapers said here yesterday, amid what diplomats said was Libyan “irritation” over criticism for renouncing weapons of mass destruction.
However, the Libyan authorities have denied imposing new visa restrictions and other rules since guards first reported Friday that Egyptians were being turned away at the Sallum desert border crossing.
“The border post at Sallum is almost deserted,” the government newspaper Al-Ahram reported from the desert border. “The movement of (Egyptian) cars has dropped from 2,000 to 80 vehicles per day.”
Egyptians wanting to enter Libya must now carry a visa as well as present “a work contract and the sum of 350 dollars or the equivalent in Libyan dinars or Egyptian pounds,” according to Al-Ahram’s correspondent.
Egyptians had until Friday crossed only with their identity papers. Al-Akhbar, another government daily, added that Egypt slapped a reciprocal requirement that Libyans now obtain visas at the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli before traveling here. However, both sides have denied any new restrictions, adding to the confusion. Egyptian airport sources also said 173 Libyans entered Egypt by obtaining their visa directly at the airport, as they have done for years, after the authorities dropped an initial demand that they obtain the visas first in Libya. It was not immediately clear how many, if any Egyptians were blocked from flying into Libya just carrying their identity papers.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Alam Al-Yaum said Parliament’s committee on labor would hold an emergency meeting to hear what Labor Minister Ahmed Al-Amawi planned to do to protect Egyptians barred from Libya.
The newspaper said between 1.5 and two million Egyptians work in Libya.
The Egyptian newspapers, including those run by the government, said the unilateral decision by Libya to renounce efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) weakened Arab efforts to force Israel to abandon its undeclared nuclear weapons program. The newspapers then ran reports that Libya and Israel had held talks about the prospect of forging diplomatic ties, which Libya has denied.
Though Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak welcomed Libya’s move as a step toward making Israel follow suit, his adviser Osama Al-Baz hinted the decision posed a problem during a Dec. 24 visit to Egypt by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“It is impossible to eliminate these weapons in the region unilaterally because this could create a dangerous upset in the security and strategic balance between Arabs and Israelis,” Baz said.
The Libyan Embassy in Egypt has meanwhile filed a complaint with the state prosecutor against 15 journalists from opposition and independent newspapers which allegedly criticized Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi over his WMD decision, the Egyptian journalists’ union revealed Saturday.
