Secret diplomacy pays off

Dubai: A two-page deal to release six foreign medical workers convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV was the culmination of years of behind-the-scenes work by the European Union, officials and experts said.

Hours after being freed, the medical workers flew to Bulgaria on board a French presidential plane and were pardoned on arrival by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.

The release of the five nurses and a doctor was made possible by the deal struck in Tripoli on improving Libya-EU ties.

The round of negotiations that freed the medical workers began on Saturday and involved European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia.

However, the groundwork began years earlier with Ferrero-Waldner making many trips to Libya to meet the prisoners and working to improve conditions for children infected with HIV/Aids.

Diplomats and international observers said Libya's insistence on full relations with the European Union as the price for releasing the Bulgarian medical workers at the heart of the Aids scandal shows the Muammar Gaddafi regime is determined to break the country's international isolation.

Sarkozy is expected to hold talks with Gaddafi this week to discuss Tripoli's re-integration into the international community.

By striking the deal, Libya also secured partnerships in health, education, border control and the upkeep of the country's many archeological sites, analysts said. Brussels is also looking forward to more cooperation from Tripoli on issues such as cross-border migration.

"We have won political and humanitarian gains," Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Rahman Shalgham said.

The EU would help Libya develop a national health plan and provide specific assistance on HIV and the infected children. EU officials also thanked Qatar for helping in the mediation.

As the six celebrated, France's junior minister for human rights said she hoped to win freedom for Myanmar's jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.