TIMESONLINE: Gordon Brown is expected to invite two controversial world leaders, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, to an international oil summit in London.
The invitation could bring the Libyan leader to Britain on his first official visit after years of isolation. An invitation could also bring Mr Chavez, the champion of socialist revolution in South America, to London and an unlikely photo-opportunity with Mr Brown.
Drawing up the guest list for the Prime Minister’s promised summit in December, a follow-up to the international meeting of oil producers and consumers in Saudi Arabia over the summer, was always likely to be an awkward business.
Mr Brown is keen to be seen to be addressing the issue of rising fuel prices, and to be acting to coordinate an international response to rising demand.
However, for all the possibilities that oil diplomacy might yield, it was likely that news of who was coming would overshadow the agenda.
The head of at least one key oil-producing nation, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, was unlikely to be considered a suitable guest, following anger over his perceived nuclear ambitions.
Meanwhile the arrival of Colonel Gadaffi in the capital would be certain to draw headlines. It is over two decades since British diplomatic relations with the country were severed, after shots fired from the Libyan embassy killed WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who was policing demonstrators outside.
Relations froze further after the bombing of an American airliner over Scotland in 1988. Since then the Libyan Government has accepted responsibility for the bombing, and ‘general responsibility’ for the killing of WPC Fletcher, and Tony Blair visited the country to meet the Libyan leader last year.
Colonel Gadaffi travels with female bodyguards and in recent trips to Europe, he has kept to his preference of staying in a black Bedouin tent, pitching it in government owned gardens in Paris and Brussels. Gordon Brown to Invite Gaddafi to London >>> By Will Pavia | September 9, 2008
THE INDEPENDENT:
The Big Question: Is the West Right to Resume Friendly Relations with Gaddafi's Libya? >>> By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor | September 9, 2008
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