British Foreign Office minister Baroness Simons held talks with Libyan officials on boosting ties between London and Tripoli, the official Libyan news agency Jana said on Friday.
At a meeting with Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelraham Shalgham on Thursday, Simons handed over a message from Prime Minister Tony Blair for Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi.
The agency said the two ministers discussed ways of ”strengthening bilateral cooperation in all fields”.
The visit by Simons, who is Minister for Middle East Affairs, follows a landmark trip by Blair to Libya last March after the North African country renounced its programme of weapons of mass destruction and emerged from years of international pariah status.
Blair’s visit provoked controversy among other British politicians and received a mixed reaction from relatives of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing blamed on Libya. Tripoli has paid damages to the relatives of those killed.
In a further sign of Tripoli’s growing acceptance by the West, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was also visiting Libya on Thursday and invited Gadaffi to pay a return visit to Germany.
French President Jacques Chirac also plans a visit later this year. — Sapa-AFP