Rice to make historic trip to Libya
US: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit Libya this
week, part of a dramatic turnaround in U.S. relations with a former
pariah nation that no American secretary of state has visited in more
than half a century.
Rice begins a four-nation tour of North Africa in Tripoli on Friday,
meeting with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and other top officials in
what the State Department is calling a landmark trip that will symbolize
the opening of a new era in ties between the United States and the
oil-rich country.
“It’s a historic stop,” spokesman Sean McCormack said, noting that
Rice will be the first secretary of state to visit Libya since John
Foster Dulles in 1953 and the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit
since then-Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957.
“In that period of time, we’ve had a man land on the moon, the
Internet, the Berlin Wall fall, and we’ve had 10 U.S. presidents.”
Until Gadhafi led a coup against King Idris I in 1969, the United
States had good relations with and a major air base in Libya.
Rice’s visit comes amid a surge in interest from U.S. firms,
particularly in the energy sector, to do business in Libya, where
European companies have had much greater access in recent years. Libya’s
proven oil reserves are the ninth largest in the world, close to 39
billion barrels, and vast areas remain unexplored for new deposits.
WASHINGTON,
Wednesday,
AP
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