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France and Libya deny arms and medics deals are linked

France and Libya have tried to dispel accusations that a deal to sell European military equipment to Tripoli was tied to the release of six foreign medics jailed in the North African state.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 23:05 August 5, 2007
  • Gulf News

  • Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed hours before a visit to Tripoli last month by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, clearing the path for better relations between Libya and the West.
  • Image Credit: Reuters

Paris: France and Libya have tried to dispel accusations that a deal to sell European military equipment to Tripoli was tied to the release of six foreign medics jailed in the North African state.

"The arms contract Libya signed with EADS was not in exchange for releasing the medics," said Saif Al Islam, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"The timing was a coincidence. The release was a humanitarian affair which cannot be the object of a swap."

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were freed hours before a visit to Tripoli last month by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, clearing the path for better relations between Libya and the West.

Sarkozy - whose wife had visited Libya days earlier on a mission to help free the nurses - clinched an accord on defence and signed a memorandum of understanding on nuclear energy during his visit, but a French presidential palace official denied he had a direct role in the weapons deal.

Negotiations

"Commercial negotiations between MBDA and the Libyan authorities had been going on for a long time and we never intervened to speed up their conclusion," Claude Gueant, Sarkozy's chief of staff, told the French daily Le Figaro.

"This subject [the arms deal] was never tackled during our discussions on the release of the Bulgarian nurses."

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