FRANCE: France said yesterday that a deal with Libya on increased compensation for the 1989 bombing of a French airliner that killed 170 people could be imminent.
Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin said representatives of the victims' families had left for Libya on Thursday to conduct talks to win a better compensation deal for the bombing of the UTA airliner over the west African state of Niger.
"We hope that in the coming hours the discussions [in Libya] will succeed," he told RTL radio.
Britain has agreed to delay a UN Security Council vote on lifting UN sanctions against Libya until next week to give France more time to win a better deal from Tripoli.
The UN vote comes after Tripoli accepted responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to pay $2.7 billion compensation.
The Lockerbie deal dwarfs the $34 million handed over earlier by Libya for the UTA bombing, for which a Paris court found six Libyans guilty in absentia.
France, which has a veto in the Security Council, has said it will oppose the lifting of sanctions unless Tripoli agrees to increase its compensation for the UTA bombing.
"We hope to find a solution," Mr de Villepin said.
Libya said on Wednesday it was willing to find a compromise solution to the dispute but warned France not to block the UN sanctions vote.
At France's request, the Security Council this week asked Britain and France to try to reach agreement - and then report back to it - on a reasonable delay for a vote to end the sanctions.
Britain had been pressing for a quick vote on ending the sanctions, now that Libya has agreed to pay up to $10 million to each of the families of the 270 people killed in the Lockerbie bombing of the Pan Am flight.
A letter Libya sent to the Security Council last Friday, accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreeing to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims' families, capped 15 years of three-way negotiations with Libya over the atrocity.