LIBYA - Sept. 12 - UN Lifts Sanctions.

The UN Security Council lifts the 11-year-old sanctions imposed on Tripoli for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 that killed 270 people at Lockerbie in Scotland. (The decision, which could lead to Tripoli paying as much as $2.7 bn to the families of the victims, was the culmination of a long effort by Tripoli to persuade the world that it had renounced its past support for terrorism. The vote comes after Tripoli accepted responsibility for the bombing and will result in an immediate payout of $4m to each of the families. But unless the US lifts its own commercial sanctions against Libya within the next eight months, half of the $2.7 bn will revert to Tripoli). The US abstains on the 13-0 council vote, saying its own sanctions would remain in full force because of continuing concerns about Libya's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, its human rights record and its meddling in African affairs. (The Washington sanctions bar US oil companies from potentially lucrative leases they still hold in Libya. There is also the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act which bars non-US companies from investing more than $20m/year in Libya's or Iran's energy sector. But James Cunningham, deputy US ambassador to the UN, does not rule out the possibility that the eight-month deadline Tripoli had set could be met, by saying: "We hope that by doing this, Libya is signalling that it intends to move quickly to address the concerns that underlie the US measures". Reportedly, some Us State Department officials aim to continue discussions with Libya that could lead to its removal from the US list of terrorist sponsors - the next step towards ending sanctions. Security Council action had been stalled for several weeks by a French threat to exercise its veto unless Libya agreed to raise the compensation paid to the 170 victims of France's UTA Flight 772, which was blown up over the Sahara in 1989 in a separate terrorist attack in which six Libyan intelligence officials were implicated by a French court. In 1999 the French court ordered Tripoli to pay just $33m - an average of $194,000 each - to the families of the UTA victims, a small fraction of the Lockerbie settlement. But late on Sept. 10 Libya agreed with France to a framework that will lead to higher payouts. France also abstained in the Sept. 12 vote. The UN action is primarily symbolic, because the sanctions had been suspended in 1999, when Libya agreed to turn over two Libyan agents suspected of planting the bomb. One was convicted in 2001 and is serving a life sentence in a Scottish jail). A coalition of US multinational companies on Sept. 12 urged the US to lift its own sanctions, warning that they would be "counterproductive" without international support". The sole result of US sanctions will be to multiply opportunities for foreign companies in Libya", said Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council.