Tripoli, Libya
The U.S. restored full diplomatic relations with ex-rogue state Libya this week, three years after Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi said he was ready to cease his belligerence. After extensive negotiations, Libya ended its small chemical and nuclear weapons programs; it also took responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am passenger jet. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. would now remove Libya from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and reopen an embassy in Tripoli. Other pariah states could win similar recognition, Rice said, if they also renounced weapons of mass destruction. “Just as 2003 marked a turning point for the Libyan people, so too could 2006 mark turning points for the peoples of Iran and North Korea,” she said. Libya’s Foreign Ministry insisted the country had made “no concessions” to the U.S. and that relations would be “based on mutual respect and equality, without interference in internal affairs.”
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