WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is weighing a decision on whether to extend restrictions on travel by Americans to Libya. The deadline to decide is Friday.
The main consideration is the security of Americans, a State Department official said. Also, the ongoing trial of two Libyans accused of blowing up a Pan Am flight 12 years ago over Lockerbie, Scotland, and a report on safety issues by a U.S. team that traveled to Libya earlier in the year will be considered by Albright, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Under U.S. law, Albright could extend the travel ban for a year, choose a few months' extension or drop it entirely. A brief extension or an end to the 19-year-old restriction would be seen as an attempt to warm relations with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
An easing of the travel ban would be bound to anger the families of some of the 270 people, most of them Americans, who died in the bombing, but would please American oil interests that want to get involved in the redevelopment of Libyan petroleum resources.
Their case is helped by high world petroleum prices and the argument that new oil supplies from Libya could reduce them.
Libya is listed by the State Department as one of seven countries that support terrorism. In a report last April, the department said surrendering two Libyans for trial in the Pan Am bombing was an important step. But the report said it was not clear whether Gadhafi's claims of distancing Libya from its terrorist past signified a true change in policy.
The two defendants in the trial have pleaded innocent and blamed Palestinian terrorist groups for the Pan Am bombing.
Last year, Britain, which usually shares the tough stand the United States takes against terrorism, renewed full diplomatic relations with Libya.
