Obama, Cameron tread cautiously

BP, Lockerbie main issues:

US: British Prime Minister David Cameron Tuesday rejected calls for an inquiry into whether BP Plc influenced the release of the Lockerbie bomber, even as he sought to ease transatlantic tensions in talks with US President Barack Obama.

Determined not to let the Lockerbie controversy and BP’s role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill overshadow their White House meeting, the two leaders reaffirmed the much-vaunted “special relationship” between their countries.

Cameron said he understood US anger over BP’s role in the spill and tried to defuse US lawmakers’ concerns that the company may have had a hand in Scottish authorities’ release last year of a Libyan convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

But Cameron, under pressure at home to stand up for the British energy giant against the bashing it has faced in Washington, also insisted it was in US and British interests for the company to remain strong and viable. Obama, whose approval ratings have been undercut by public outrage over the spill, avoided the tough language he has often used against BP over its handling of the Gulf disaster and also played down the simmering controversy over the Lockerbie case.

“I completely understand the anger that exists right across America. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a catastrophe,” Cameron told reporters as he stood side by side with Obama in his first US visit since taking power in May.

“It is BP’s role to cap the leak, clean up the mess and pay appropriate compensation,” Cameron said.

But he also cautioned, “Let us not confuse the oil spill with the Libyan bomber.” Cameron insisted BP had no role in the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, which he opposed at the time as opposition leader, and pledged his government’s aid in any US Senate probe into the matter.

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Reuters