VALLETTA, Malta — The recent signing in Tripoli of "a comprehensive claims settlement" between the United States and Libya marks a new beginning not only in U.S.-Libya relations, but between Libya and the rest of the world.
The agreement provides a process for compensating the victims of attacks ranging from the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, to the U.S. airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986. It thus removes a final hurdle to Libya establishing normal diplomatic and economic ties with the West and opened the way for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Tripoli on Friday.
The Joint Statement, while clinically welcoming the agreement, states that both parties "thereby turn their focus to the future of their bilateral relationship," underscoring "the benefits that an expansion of ties would provide for both countries as well as for the American and Libyan peoples."