Bush to send US ambassador to Libya, first in years

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) In a sign of improving US ties with Libya, President George W Bush has announced he was sending the first US ambassador to Tripoli in nearly 35 years.

The decision came yesterday despite unresolved issues with Libya over compensation for US relatives of victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland and demands for the release of Bulgarian nurses accused of infecting children with HIV.

Bush nominated Gene Cretz, currently Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and previously Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Damascus, to the Tripoli post, which has been empty since 1972.

The move followed the delivery of a letter from Bush to Muammar Gaddafi on Monday that thanked the Libyan leader for scrapping weapons of mass destruction programs, but also noted the need to resolve outstanding issues.

During a visit to Bulgaria last month, Bush said it was a high priority for the United States to win the release of the Bulgarian nurses from Libya.

Libya's Supreme Court yesterday upheld death sentences against the five nurses and one Palestinian doctor convicted in December of deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV.

The State Department responded to that court ruling by saying the medics should be ''returned immediately.'' While ties have improved dramatically since Libya's 2003 decision to give up weapons of mass destruction, the United States until now had held back from naming an ambassador to serve in Tripoli.

The last US ambassador to Libya was Joseph Palmer, who left the post on November 7, 1972. The US Embassy was closed on May 2, 1980.

A US interests section opened in Tripoli on February 8, 2004, after Gaddafi gave up weapons of mass destruction. On May 31, 2006, the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Libya and the interests section became a full embassy.

The move to send an ambassador, a sign of strengthening diplomatic ties, was expected to anger relatives of victims of the Pan Am bombing, who argue that Libya has not paid all of the money it had promised.

REUTERS PDS BST0613