WASHINGTON, 1 June 2008 — The United States and Libya have agreed to try to resolve compensation claims from the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other incidents Washington views as acts of terrorism by Libya, the State Department said on Friday.
The two governments this week opened negotiations seeking to lay to rest events that have bedeviled relations for decades despite the improvement in ties after Libya’s 2003 decision to abandon its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
“Representatives of the United States and Libya met in London May 28-29 to begin negotiations on a claims settlement agreement,” the two countries said in a joint statement issued by the State Department.
“Both parties affirmed their desire to work together to resolve all outstanding claims in good faith and expeditiously through the establishment of a fair compensation mechanism.”
Two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named said one idea that has been discussed would be the creation of a global compensation fund to pay families of the American victims of the incidents. These include the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans, and the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin disco in which two US servicemen were killed.
