U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam Gadhafi here Thursday with the two sides having exchanged views over bilateral ties and issues of mutual concerns.
"We had a very good conversation about how to move the relationship forward," Rice told reporters after her closed-door meeting with Kadhafi.
Rice did not reveal any details of the meeting. Prior to the meeting, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch has met with Seif.
Seif, who doesn't have any official position except head of the Gadhafi Foundation, is here "on a private visit," according to the State Department.
The high-level meeting between the United States and Libya occurred after U.S. President George W. Bush telephoned Libya's Moammar Gadhafi to express his satisfaction over a 1.5-billion-dollar payment that Tripoli made to settle a long-standing dispute over terror attacks, including the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Scotland.
It was reported that Libya's intelligence chief Moussa Kossa, and Interior Minister Abdel-Fatah Younes are due to visit Washington this weekend.
The United States had no diplomatic relations with Libya from 1980 until after the latter pledged to abandon weapons of mass destruction programs, stop exporting terrorism and pay compensation to the families of victims of two of the three attacks.
Since renouncing terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in 2003, Libya is no longer on the State Department's list of "state sponsors of terrorism."
Source:Xinhua
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