WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France has privately threatened to veto lifting U.N. sanctions on Libya unless Tripoli boosts compensation for victims of a 1989 French airliner bombing, possibly jeopardizing the $2.7 billion Lockerbie settlement, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The French position angered and outraged U.S. officials who feared it would delay or undermine a tortuously negotiated deal under which Libya plans to pay up to $10 million to families of the 270 people killed in the mid-air bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The U.S. officials accused France of hypocrisy, saying it had long ago accepted lower compensation for the 170 victims of the bombing of UTA Flight 772 over Niger in 1989 and in the past had called for the U.N. sanctions to be permanently lifted.
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One U.S. official said France told the Security Council in 1998 that Libya had met its conditions over UTA, which consisted of cooperating with a French investigation into the bombing.
"France basically sold out their own families for oil a long time ago," said the U.S. official. "It's reprehensible what they're doing here." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=7&u=/nm/20030814/ts_nm/lockerbie_dc_5And the winner of the Pot Calling the Kettle Black award goes to...unnamed U.S. official!
DTH
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