FRANCE: Relatives of French victims of a 1989 airliner bombing linked to Libya returned from Tripoli empty-handed yesterday after pleading for compensation in line with the huge payments offered in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Representatives of the families, whose weekend trip Paris hoped would break a deadlock at the United Nations threatening to hold up the Lockerbie deal, declined to give details of the talks before consultations with French officials.
But a source close to the talks said the families, who had already received modest compensation from Libya, were asking for too much in supplementary payments after Tripoli agreed this month to far higher amounts for the Lockerbie victims.
"There was no progress made," Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, spokesman for some families of victims from the mid-air explosion of a UTA airline jet over the west African state of Niger, said shortly after returning to Paris.
"The negotiations have failed," said the source, who asked not to be identified. "The reason was the exaggerated figures sought by the families. They wanted the equivalent of the Concorde crash compensation." Families of the 109 people who died in the Air France Concorde crash in Paris in 2000 won $120 million in compensation.
It was not clear if the talks with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam would resume. The French Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
France, with its Security Council veto, has threatened to block any lifting of UN sanctions on Libya, due to be voted on this week, if its citizens do not receive more money.
Foreign Minister Mr Dominique de Villepin said on Friday that the original compensation sum was unacceptable and he hoped the families' representatives could reach a deal with Tripoli.
Already at odds over France's criticism of the Iraq war, US officials have accused Paris of double-dealing by accepting a low compensation deal years ago and now demanding more.
On August 15th, Libya accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed with Britain and the US to pay $2.7 billion in compensation for the 270 people killed when Pan Am flight 103 exploded in a mid-air blast.
The Security Council looked set for a quick vote to lift UN sanctions on Libya, but delayed it while France made a last-minute demand for a supplement to the $34 million compensation Tripoli has already paid for the UTA victims.
Libya never accepted blame for the 1989 downing of a jet from the now defunct French airline UTA over the west African state of Niger, but it agreed to pay out after a French court found six Libyan agents guilty in absentia for the bombing. - (Reuters)