Libyan leader and former pariah Moammar Gadaffi was due to arrive in Russia on Friday for the first time since 1985 on a visit that could revive military cooperation between Tripoli and Cold War ally Moscow.
Arms purchases and nuclear energy were on the agenda for Gadaffi’s three-day visit, which was to begin with dinner at Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s residence outside Moscow at 4pm GMT, the Kremlin said.
Libya might also offer to host a Russian military base on its Mediterranean coastline, a move likely to alarm the West, a Russian newspaper reported.
One topic of this weekend’s talks would be ”military-technical cooperation”, a Kremlin official said ahead of Gadaffi’s visit, using a term that typically describes arms purchases.
Tripoli bought many of its arms from Moscow during the Cold War, which was still raging when Gadaffi last visited in 1985.
Talks could also touch on ”the peaceful atom”, the Kremlin official said on condition of anonymity, following previous reports that Russia was in talks about building a nuclear power plant in Libya.
The Kommersant daily reported on Friday that Gadaffi might also offer to host a Russian naval base in the Libyan port of Benghazi, citing a source close to the preparations for his visit.
”The Russian military presence will be a guarantee of non-aggression against Libya from the United States,” the newspaper said.
For Russia, a Mediterranean base would cement its military resurgence after it dispatched a flotilla of warships in a show of might last month. The ships stopped in Tripoli this month and are due to continue to Venezuela.
Libya could agree to buy over $2-billion of Russian arms this weekend, Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing a source in the Russian defence industry.
It was interested in S-300 and Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile systems, Su-30 and Mig-29 fighter jets and T-90 battle tanks, the source said.
Gadaffi has also asked Russian officials where in Moscow he can set up his traditional Bedouin tent, where he receives guests during state visits, said a Kremlin official.
”It is an important detail for the Libyan leader,” the official said.
According to Libyan sources in Moscow, Gadaffi would visit Ukraine and Belarus after his visit to Russia.
Relations have warmed significantly this year between Russia and Libya, which began to shed its pariah status in 2003 when it renounced weapons of mass destruction and admitted guilt in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner.
On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the countries shared a ”common position” on the importance of a ”multipolar world,” a term used by Moscow to describe its opposition to US global dominance.
In April, Russia’s then-president Vladimir Putin visited Tripoli and Moscow agreed to cancel billions of dollars of Libyan Soviet-era debt in exchange for big contracts with Russian companies.
But Gadaffi has dragged his feet on implementing the deals and he angered Moscow by refusing to bring his energy-rich country into a ”gas Opec” with Russia and Qatar, Kommersant said on Friday. – AFP
