Joined: 05 Oct 2005
Posts: 315
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Libya and Italy said on Tuesday that an informal meeting over the weekend between Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema was very positive in the standoff between the two countries over the payment of compensation by Rome for its colonial past. However, Libya's official news agency Jana claimed D'Alema has agreed to fund a 3.5 billion euro highway in the North African country as part of the deal - a report not confirmed by Italy.
The 2,000-km long highway Gaddafi wants to build to connect the Tunisian and Algerian border though Libya, from Ras Jdeir to Assaloum, has been a key problem in negotiations between the two countries to reach an accord. According to a report in Italy's main newspaper Corriere della Sera, D'Alema allegedly agreed to help build the highway in exchange for Gaddafi's promise to pay 600 million dollars to Italian companies and nationals who were expelled from Libya in 1970. Talks on compensation for Italy's colonial rule (1911-1943) in Libya appeared to have reached a successful end in 1998 when then foreign minister Lamberto Dini agreed to fund a number of initiatives, including a pedriatic hospital ward in the port city of Benghazi, but not the highway. Libya however raised the stakes in 2001, after conservative prime minister Silvio Berlusconi won national elections demanding once again funding to build the highway. Nevertheless a year later, Gaddafi rejected a proposal by Berlusconi who offered Libya 63 billion euros to build a highway connecting Tripoli to Benghazi and to build a hospital. The Libyan embassy in Rome has been closed for the past few months and the ambassador withdrawn, officially while construction work is being carried out on the building. |
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