THE United States has ruled out the lifting of UN sanctions against Libya, which were suspended in April, because Tripoli has “failed to fully cooperate with Lockerbie trial proceedings,” US ambassador Peter Burleigh said in Washington on Thursday. Burleigh said “there are outstanding requests from the Scottish prosecutors which are very specific requests for Libyan cooperation, and those have not been replied to.” He suggested that the US administration will wait until the end of the trial of two Libyan suspects accused of planting a bomb in 1988 on a US airliner that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, before agreeing to lift the sanctions. UN chief Kofi Annan is due to submit a report to the UN Security Council by next Monday on whether to completely lift the sanctions imposed in 1992.
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