TIMES ONLINE: Libya may have renounced its weapons of mass destruction, but two weapons just as powerful remain in its arsenal: its vast and barely tapped reserves of oil and gas.
Tony Blair helped to secure a £900 million gas exploitation deal for BP when he visited Libya two years ago, but the deal remains hampered by bureaucratic obstacles.
At the same meeting Mr Blair and Colonel Gaddafi discussed Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s release, setting the path towards a possible prisoner transfer agreement. Will his walk to freedom on compassionate grounds now lead to BP’s hurdles magically dissolving?
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader’s debonair son and probable heir, implied so as he accompanied al-Megrahi back to Tripoli. “In all commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain, al-Megrahi was always on the negotiating table,” he said. It is undiplomatic of Saif to say it, but that does not stop it from being true. Libya, once a reviled pariah state, has played a long, careful game to bring itself in from the cold — including the handover of al-Megrahi in the first place, part of its effort to re-establish trade relations with the West. Saif has publicly stated that al-Megrahi was Libya’s national fall guy, handed over in the hope of re-establishing trade relations with the West. >>> Catherine Philp | Tuesday, August 25, 2009
