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)