BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

02/11/2008

Gaddaffi off to Belarus

Minsk - Libyan leader Moamer Gaddaffi was to travel to Belarus on Sunday for talks with authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko as part of a landmark ex-Soviet tour, Lukashenko's office said.

"On Monday the leaders of the two countries will hold talks in Minsk that are expected to lead to the signing of a number of bilateral agreements," the Belarus presidential administration said in a statement.

Gaddaffi was to travel to Minsk from Moscow, where he agreed a civil nuclear cooperation deal after talks he said could help restore "geopolitical equilibrium."

The Libyan leader, who has never travelled to Belarus before, was visiting Moscow for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Lukashenko, whose regime has been described by Washington as Europe's last dictatorship, visited Libya in 2000 when the country was still regarded as an international outcast.

Libya only later began to shed its pariah status when in 2003 it renounced weapons of mass destruction and took responsibility for a 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.

According to Libyan sources in Moscow, Kadhafi was expected to complete his tour of ex-Soviet states with a visit to Ukraine early next week.

Lukashenko's office did not say whether Kadhafi would travel to Minsk with his traditional Bedouin tent, which was pitched in the grounds of the Kremlin on Saturday night. - Sapa-AFP

Source:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_&set_id=&click_id=&art_id=nw20081102114630161C393865

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