U.S. Sees Nothing New in Libya Overtures on Suspects

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali reported an “evolution” on Wednesday in the Libyan position on the Pan Am Flight 103 air disaster, but the Bush Administration dismissed the latest overtures of Libya as nothing new.

The difference in perception by Boutros-Ghali and the United States reflects a deep division within the Security Council over Libya’s failure to turn over two Libyan officials indicted in the United States for masterminding the bombing of the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. This difference has been exacerbated by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi’s recent plea that the International Court of Justice take over the case.

While the United States and Britain are pressing for the Security Council to impose sanctions against Libya, a U.N. diplomat said, other members of the council want to give Libya more time to comply with the U.N. demands. As a result, the diplomat said, the council will probably do nothing about Libya until the court, which meets in The Hague, decides later this month whether to hear the case.

In his report to the council, Boutros-Ghali said Kadafi told the United Nations that Libya might repeal its constitutional prohibition against handing over Libyans to another country without an extradition treaty. Once this prohibition was lifted, Libya, he said, would consider handing the two suspects over to Malta or an Arab country or the United Nations or even to the United States, if there were an “improvement in bilateral relations.”

Although it is clear that Kadafi, by failing to extradite the suspects, has not complied with the U.N. resolutions, Boutros-Ghali said “there has been a certain evolution in the position of the Libyan authorities” and “the Security Council may wish to consider this in deciding on its future course of action.”

But in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the United States is not ready to accept Libya’s proposal to turn the suspects over to a third party. “The Libyan government knows what they need to do, and nothing has changed in our policy,” she said.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.