Russia offered to help Libya develop nuclear power as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov prepared to visit the country that holds Africa's biggest oil reserves.
“We are ready to help Libya realize its inalienable right to attain civilian nuclear'' energy, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said yesterday in an interview posted on the ministry's Web site. Lavrov will visit for two days from Dec. 23 and hold talks with his Libyan counterpart Abdel Rahman Shalgham.
Russia's offer came after France said earlier this month it plans to sell nuclear reactors to the North African nation. Countries have sought to boost ties with oil-rich Libya since its leader, Muammar Qaddafi, mended relations with the West.
Qaddafi agreed in 2003 to give up Libya's nuclear weapons program. The U.S. last year removed Libya from a State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism and upgraded diplomatic relations.
Qaddafi agreed to pay the relatives of the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. A Libyan intelligence agent was convicted over his role in the bombing of the plane.
President Ronald Reagan called Qaddafi a “mad dog'' and bombed the capital, Tripoli, in 1986 in retaliation for an attack on a German discotheque that the U.S. said was masterminded in Libya.
Russia is seeking to secure more international contracts after it started nuclear fuel deliveries to Iran's first atomic power station this week.
The shipments are under the control of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, which has clashed with the U.S. government over claims that Iran's nuclear program is a cover for building a bomb. U.S. intelligence agencies said in a Dec. 3 report that Iran suspended work on atomic weapons in 2003.
