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BENGHAZI - Libyan leader Moamer Gadhafi said his regime’s long estrangement from the United States was finally over as he marked the 39th anniversary yesterday of his overthrow of the Western-backed monarchy.
“The whole business of the conflict between Libya and the United States has been closed once and for all,” Gadhafi said in an anniversary speech to the General People’s Congress, Libya’s equivalent of a parliament.
“There will be no more wars, raids or acts of terrorism,” said Gadhafi, whose support for a raft of anti-Western militant groups in the 1980s prompted then US president Ronald Reagan to describe him as a “mad dog.”
Last month, Libya finally reached a compensation deal with the families of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, the deadliest attack blamed on Gadhafi’s regime.
The move paved the way for the full normalisation of ties with Washington and an expected visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later this week.
But Gadhafi stressed that Libya was not looking for US friendship. “All we want is to be left alone,” he said.
The Libyan leader hailed a new era in relations with former colonial power Italy after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi apologised on Saturday for the damage inflicted on Libya during the colonial era and signed a five-billion-dollar investment deal by way of compensation.
“It’s a major political, moral and material victory from which we are going to benefit all our lives,” Gadhafi said in the anniversary speech delivered in Libya’s second city of Benghazi in the early hours of the morning.
Under the deal, Libya is to receive 200 million dollars a year from Italy over the next 25 years through investments in infrastructure projects.
Exceptionally Gadhafi himself signed Saturday’s agreement with Berlusconi. The Libyan leader normally eschews state functions
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