Talks aimed at reaching a compensation deal over a 1986 Berlin night-club bombing and aiding Libya's return to the diplomatic fold stalled Sunday but will resume next month, a lawyer for victims said.
Hans-Joachim Ehrig, spokesman for the German legal delegation at the meeting with Libyan representatives, said that negotiations on behalf of 163 mainly German victims of the blast would stop for now due to continued discord over the amount of the pay-out.
But he told a news conference that the discussions, which began Friday, had been "constructive" and that a fifth round of negotiations would begin in June in the German capital, probably in the first half of the month.
He compared progress toward a deal to a boat "that has gained speed and reduced the distance to the port by half".
The Kadhafi Foundation, which is chaired by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Saif al-Islam, offered last August to pay compensation over the attack on the La Belle night-club, which killed two US servicemen and a Turkish woman and injured more than 250 other people.
Four people were sentenced to up to 14 years in prison for the bombing in 2001 by a German court which ruled that the Libyan state held partial responsibility for the blast.
The Kadhafi Foundation, however, has stressed that the payment offer was never an admission of guilt but rather a "gesture of humanity".
After talks last month in Tripoli one of the German lawyers involved said it was possible a deal for the non-American victims could be struck at the Berlin talks.
Libya has reached compensation agreements with the families of victims of airliners blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 and Niger in 1989.
Those accords along with Moamar Kadhafi's recent decision to abandon his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction have helped Libya overcome its isolation as an international pariah. But La Belle remains an obstacle.
For the 11 victims who were seriously injured, the Libyan side has offered 325,000 dollars per person while their lawyers are seeking 600,000 dollars for each victim.
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