BERLIN, 5 September 2004 — German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is to meet Libyan leader Moamer Qaddafi in Libya next month, it was confirmed in Berlin yesterday.
It follows the signing of an agreement Friday in which Tripoli agreed to pay $35 million in compensation to victims of a terrorist bombing 18 years ago in Berlin.
The government confirmed a report of the visit to appear Monday in the latest edition of Der Spiegel news magazine.
The report quotes Qaddafi’s son, Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi, as saying Schroeder will be in Libya on Oct. 15, marking “a new chapter” in ties between the two countries.
Friday’s agreement, which was signed in Tripoli by the Qaddafi Foundation and German lawyers, will see compensation paid out within the next six months to German, Turkish, Italian, Japanese and Arab victims injured in the bombing.
It is the third major compensation settlement signed by Libya in its efforts to return to the international fold. The agreement opens the way for Libya to establish friendly relations with the European Union and join an EU-led Mediterranean partnership.
The bomb blast on April 5, 1986 at Berlin’s La Belle nightclub killed two US servicemen and a civilian woman and injured about 200 people, the majority of them German. The nightclub was popular with US soldiers stationed in the west of the then divided city.
In retaliation, then US President Ronald Reagan ordered air-strikes on Qaddafi’s tent home in Libya a few weeks later.
