United Nations, Aug 22: The vote on the British resolution seeking to lift sanctions against Libya has been delayed at least until next week to give more time to France to renegotiate compensation for the victims of downing of a French commercial airliner with Tripoli, diplomats said. The British-sponsored resolution would withdraw the 11-year-old sanctions on Libya as Tripoli has accepted responsibility and offered compensation for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
France had indicated that it would veto the resolution unless Libya came up with a similar compensation for the 1989 attack on a French airliner also blamed on Tripoli. Libya had given 34 million dollars for the victims without taking responsibility for the downing and the family of each of 171 victims got 33,780 dollars. A Paris court had found six Libyan guilty in a trial held in absentia. The plane belonged to now defunct UTA.
But France had second thoughts after Americans negotiated a ten million dollar compensation for the families of each of the 270 victims of pan am flight that crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 after a bomb smuggled on board exploded. Meanwhile, United States has said it would not oppose lifting of UN sanctions but would maintain the bilateral sanctions it had imposed. Bureau Report