Prime minister plans to meet with Gadhafi

Canada lifted sanctions against Libya in 1999.
TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin intends to travel to Libya next month to endorse Col. Moammar Gadhafi's efforts to transform himself into an opponent of terrorism.
Sources said plans are afoot for Martin to take a two-day trip in mid-December to the African country. Such a trip would add yet another destination to a growing and aggressive international agenda as the Prime Minister moves to reassert Canada's traditional multilateral role in world affairs.
Such a visit would help burnish the image of Gadhafi, once regarded as an international pariah for his rogue state's role in fomenting terrorism.
Scott Reid, a spokesman for the Prime Minister, would not confirm Martin's travel plans, saying the office does not confirm foreign travel that far in advance.
Lockerbie disaster
In recent years Libya has acknowledged responsibility and has agreed to pay compensation for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.
Compensation deals have also been struck for the families of 170 people who died in a 1989 bombing of a French jetliner, and for the 1986 bombing of a German discotheque. Libya has also agreed to dismantle development of weapons of mass destruction and allow international inspectors to visit the facilities.
As a reward, the European Union stopped a dozen years of sanctions against Libya. The United States eased off sanctions last spring after Gadhafi stopped the weapons program.
Canada lifted sanctions against Libya in 1999 and opened an embassy in the capital, Tripoli, in 2002.
Calgary-based Petro-Canada produces oil in Libya, and Talisman Energy Inc. has also been monitoring improved relations between that country and the West with an eye to oil exploration there.
Blair meeting
In March, British Prime Minster Tony Blair met with Gadhafi for 90 minutes in a Bedouin tent on the outskirts of Tripoli and announced that the onetime sponsor of state terrorism was willing to make "common cause" in the fight against Al-Qaida.
Libya's efforts to end its isolation can be linked to its economic problems. Despite huge oil wealth, the country is desperate for tourist revenue and Western technology to boost its petroleum production.
At the time of the meeting, Blair said Libya's decision in 2003 to renounce its weapons of mass destruction was "extraordinary." Blair had been criticized in Britain for sidling up to a leader that former U.S. president Ronald Reagan once termed the "mad dog of the Middle East."