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France, U.S. heading for another row?

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS AUG. 19. France and the U.S. appear to be heading towards another major quarrel, this time over the U.S. attempts to lift the U.N. economic sanctions against Libya as part of an agreement to compensate families of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bomb explosion that claimed 270 lives.

France has threatened to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution, tabled by Britain on Monday, unless comparable compensation is paid to families of victims of a French airliner downed by the Libyans in a copycat attack one year later.

Libya has admitted to having planted bombs on two aircraft that resulted in the Lockerbie disaster in 1988 and the identical French UTA crash in 1989 that killed 170. The U.N. slapped sanctions against Lybia as a result of the bombings. The Americans have worked out a deal with Lybia under which Tripoli will pay out $2.7 billions as compensation to victims' families — roughly $6 millions per death. However, Washington has said there was no question of lifting bilateral sanctions against Libya because the U.S. still had a number of unresolved issues with that country.

France signed a deal with the Lybians under which French victims of the UTA bombing would receive a mere $34 million dollars. Now the French are saying they will oppose the lifting of the U.S. sanctions unless comparable payments are made to families of the UTA victims. On Monday, Britain tabled a new resolution in the U.N. Security Council proposing lifting the sanctions which is expected to be debated by the Security Council today, ahead of a possible vote on Thursday. The United States renewed calls for France not to block the Security Council resolution. The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, asked by reporters on Monday whether he expected a French veto of the resolution said: "We would not want to see anything that would impede the Pan Am 103 settlement." The Secretary of State Colin Powell, spoke with French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin in an effort to ensure that the resolution is not rejected, spokesman Richard Boucher said.

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