Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is due to make an official visit to France in December, the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday, adding that important business deals could be signed during his trip. Citing a diplomatic source, the paper said Gaddafi's visit would take place before or after an EU-Africa summit in Lisbon on December 8-9.
It would be Gaddafi's first state visit to Paris in over 30 years. A spokesman at the French presidential office had no immediate comment on the report. French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Libya in July, reaching a defence accord and signing a memorandum of understanding for a nuclear energy deal during his trip.
A few days later, the French government announced that Libya would buy anti-tank missiles and radio systems from European aerospace and defence group EADS.
The government denied allegations that the arms deal was a trade-off for the release, only hours before Sarkozy's arrival in Libya, of a group of foreign medics held in jail for eight years for allegedly infecting Libyan children with HIV. Sarkozy had sent his wife Cecilia on two missions to Libya to seek their release-irritating EU officials who felt he was ignoring their own negotiating efforts-and the medics left Libya with her on a French presidential jet.
Le Journal du Dimanche said France might try to strike a maintenance deal for 15 Mirage F1 fighter planes currently used by the Libyan air force. France might also try to sell Libya the Rafale combat jet, the report said.
Both Mirage and Rafale planes are made by the French group Dassault Aviation, in which EADS France has a 46 percent stake. The report said Libya and France might also seek deals on nuclear energy and water treatment. Another option under consideration might be for Libya to buy stakes in leading French companies, the newspaper said. Libya, rich in oil and gas reserves, has been rehabilitating itself with western powers after being isolated for years after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland, which cost 270 lives.
Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing by a Scottish court in 2001. He has always said he was innocent and won the right in June to launch a second appeal against his conviction. Earlier this month Libya was elected along with four other countries to a two-year term on the United Nations Security Council.
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