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Rice, Gadhafi Seal Friendly Relations Over Dinner

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The Associated Press

Published: September 6, 2008

TRIPOLI, Libya - The United States and Libya sealed a historic turnaround after decades of terrorist killings, American retaliation, suspicions and insults with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's peacemaking visit Friday with Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's mercurial strongman.

"The relationship has been moving in a good direction for a number of years now, and I think tonight does mark a new phase," Rice said after a traditional Muslim dinner - the evening meal that breaks the day's fast observed during the holy month of Ramadan - at Gadhafi's official Bab el-Azizia residence.

It is the same compound hit by U.S. airstrikes in 1986 in retaliation for a deadly Libyan-linked terrorist attack in Germany. The attack killed Gadhafi's baby daughter.

"We did talk about learning from the lessons of the past," Rice said. "We talked about the importance of moving forward. The United States, I've said many times, doesn't have any permanent enemies."

Rice is the highest-ranking American official to visit Libya in a half-century. The United States considers Gadhafi rehabilitated since the days when President Reagan called him the "mad dog of the Middle East," because of the Libyan's surprise decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism and give up weapons of mass destruction.

His government has also agreed to resolve legal claims from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other alleged terror attacks that bore Libyan fingerprints.

"Libya has changed, American has changed, the world has changed," Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said after a meeting with Rice. "Forget the past."

Gadhafi welcomed Rice in a room redolent of incense. Wearing flowing white robes, his trademark fez and a green pin of Africa, Gadhafi bowed slightly and put his right hand over his heart in a traditional Arab greeting.

They then exchanged pleasantries, with Rice offering Gadhafi greetings from President Bush and Gadhafi asking about the hurricanes that have hit or are headed to the U.S. mainland, before the media were ushered out.

Their small talk belied almost 30 years of dismal U.S.-Libyan relations that hit their low point in the 1980s when Reagan ordered the retaliatory airstrike and Gadhafi swore revenge.

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