French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi in Tripoli on Wednesday evening in his trip to deepen
relations with the northern African country.
Sarkozy arrived in Tripoli earlier on Wednesday, less than 24
hours after Libya's release of five Bulgarian nurses and a
Palestinian doctor once sentenced to death for infecting children
with HIV virus, with the help of France's mediation.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgham was quoted by
media reports as saying that Sarkozy started talks with Libyan
leader Gaddafi on Wednesday evening on means of boosting bilateral
cooperation.
The French president called his visit to Tripoli as a "political
trip" to help Libya's reintegration into the international
community after decades of isolation.
The two countries would sign an agreement on cooperation on a
military-industrial partnership and a memorandum of understanding
on the construction of a Libyan nuclear reactor for water
desalination, according to Shalgham.
France contributed a great deal to the release on Tuesday of
five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, held in Libya since
1999 and was sentenced to death for deliberately causing an HIV
outbreak at a Benghazi hospital and infecting 426 children with the
virus.
Their death sentence were commuted last week under a deal
between the Libyan side and the European Union. The six left Libya
on a French plane accompanied by Sarkozy's wife Cecilia.
Sarkozy's visit to Libya is part of his African tour that will
also take him to Senegal and Gabon, where he is expected to sign a
number of cooperation agreements with the two countries in the
economic, scientific, cultural and educational spheres.
(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2007)
