Condoleezza Rice has met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, marking the first visit of a US Secretary of State to Tripoli in 55 years.

The trip has been heralding as a new chapter in Washington's reconciliation with the former enemy state.

Rice at a news conference afterwards said the two countries had decided "to move forward in a positive way" and deal "as well as we can with issues of the past."

"After many, many years it is a good thing that the US and Libya found a way forward," she said, adding that this had become possible because Libya had made some "strategic choices."

"This is a good time for a constructive relationship between the US and Libya to emerge," the top US diplomat said.

"The world has changed"

Her Libyan counterpart, Abdelrahman Mohammed Shalgam, peaking at the joint news conference held early Saturday morning, said the time of confrontation with the United States is over.

"The world has changed," Shalgam said, adding that the very fact Rice had made the groundbreaking visit to Libya and had held talks with Kadhafi was proof of this change.

"The time of confrontation is over. There may still be differences of opinion but this will not endanger the relationship between (Libya and the US)," the minister added.

Rice earlier described her brief visit -- the first to the oil-rich north
African country by a US secretary of state in more than half a century – as "historic" and a sign the United States does not have permanent foes.

"That is not to say that everything has by any means been settled between the United States and Libya. There is a long way to go," she told reporters travelling with her.

Good example

Diplomats said Rice wanted Iran and North Korea to take note that they could benefit from rapprochement with the West, highlighting Libya's commitment to abandon nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.

"It is a beginning, it is an opening, it is not, I think, the end of the story," Rice said.

Rice met Kadhafi -- once described by former US president Ronald Reagan as a "mad dog" -- at his residence in Tripoli, Bab al Azizia, which was hit in US bombing raids ordered by Reagan in 1986.

The mercurial Libyan leader did not shake Rice's hand and instead touched his heart.

After the talks they shared an Iftar meal which breaks the fast during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Not smooth sailing

Rice's visit underscores the warming of ties following Kadhafi's dramatic 2003 announcement he was abandoning weapons of mass destruction programmes – a move which came just months after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

It comes less than a month after the two governments reached an agreement on a plan to compensate US victims of Libyan attacks and Libyan victims of US reprisals.

Both sides acknowledged they have differences and Rice said she had raised with Kadhafi the issue of human rights, including the case of jailed dissident Fathi al-Jahmi, 66.

"It is important to have dialogue, including on issues of human rights," she said at the news conference.

"As this relationship goes forward and deepens it will continue to be important for us to have transparency and to talk about these issues in a respectful way."

Shalgam, however, clearly angry at the question raised at the news conference, said Jahmi was receiving medical treatment at a private clinic.

"We care about our own people," the minister said. "We do need not anybody to come put pressure on us or give us lectures."

Source: SBS 

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