New York Times
December 7 1998
The Libyan Foreign Ministry says a deal settling a long dispute over a trial for two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet is closer after talks with the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, the official news agency JANA said today.
But hours earlier, a JANA editor who reflects the views of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, scorned Western hopes for a hand-over of the two suspects before Dec. 21, the 10th anniversary of the attack in the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The contrasting messages emanating from Libya the day after Mr. Annan met with Colonel Qaddafi and other officials to press for custody of the suspects left it unclear whether his trip had really brought the day of legal reckoning for the bombing much nearer.
JANA said the international news media had been asking for clarification on the possibility of reaching a solution to the so-called Lockerbie case.
"A source at the Foreign Affairs Ministry says a solution to this issue is closer, particularly after the fruitful talks by U.N. Secretary General Annan with the Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister," JANA said.
Libya's Foreign Minister, Omar Mustapha al-Montasser, said there would be "positive results very soon."
But JANA's diplomatic editor was not so positive. "The Lockerbie problem is an invented and complicated one and it is not logical and reasonable to solve it under the pressure of what is called the 10th anniversary of the Pan Am accident," he wrote in a JANA dispatch.
The editor belittled the importance of the meeting between Colonel Qaddafi and Mr. Annan in the Libyan leader's desert tent.
"Kofi Annan did not hold talks with the brother leader of the revolution," the article said. "He merely went to see him where he was in the Libyan desert, to salute him and greet him on his recovery." Colonel Qaddafi was on crutches when he met with Mr. Annan.
The United States and Britain are pressing for the surrender of two Libyans accused of being intelligence agents and of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, killing 270 people.
They have offered to hold the trial on neutral ground in the Netherlands, in response to a longtime Libyan demand not to hold a trial in either Britain or the United States, and want the two men to be turned over before the Dec. 21 anniversary.
A Libyan official said earlier today that he expected a long parliamentary debate on the possible handover of the two suspects after Mr. Annan's intervention in the long-festering dispute over Tripoli's refusal to relinquish the suspects. The congress is to start a five-day session on Tuesday.
Even after parliamentary approval, any surrender of the two men would require unspecified "arrangements," he said.
