Italian Leader Opens Talks With Kadafi

Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema was welcomed into Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi’s Tripoli home. It was the first visit to Libya by a Western leader since sanctions imposed in 1992 by the United Nations after the bombing of a jetliner isolated the North African country. The two-day visit could open a new chapter in relations with the West for Kadafi, who has been emerging from international ostracism since Libya handed over for trial in the Netherlands two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. “It is important to have a dialogue with this country, which is on its way to returning fully to the international community,” D’Alema said after a meeting in a concrete room in Kadafi’s heavily fortified compound.