Washington, Mar 06: In the first speech by a U.S. Senator to Libya's National Assembly in decades, Joseph Biden urged Libya to ''rejoin the community of nations,'' but said that Americans would not forget the country's past, including the bombing of Panam 103 over Lockerbie. But he appreciated the Libyan government's admission of responsibility. His office released the text yesterday. The Delaware lawmaker, who also met with Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi, urged Libya and other countries in the Middle East to do ''so much more to harness the enormous potential of their people” through democratic reforms, granting full rights to women and diversifying their oil-based economies. Biden said that radical fundamentalism was ''a clash within the Arab and Muslim worlds'' that threatened Libya as well as the United States. While chiding Libya and other Middle East countries for not capitalizing on their human potential to invigorate their economies, he also blamed the United States for too often turning a deaf ear to their problems. The senator said he was not there ''to impose American views on you,'' but, he said that democracy and Islam were not incompatible.

Bureau Report