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Dubai: Libyans are keeping a watchful eye on the visit of Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State, to Libya on Friday.
While some say the visit marks an end to 40 years of hostile relations between the two countries, but some remain suspicious about the outcome and whether it will have a genuine impact on normalising between the two nations.
Opposition figures have, however, condemned the visit since it offered a relief to the current regime with no concession on genuine reforms and respect of human rights in the country.
An opposition writer, who lives in France, said the visit is blunt evidence about the insincerity of the US and the West towards the human rights issues.
"Rice is visiting Libya after Gaddafi gave up his nuclear programme and paid billions of dollars in compensation for the Lockerbie victims. The regime, which came to power in a military coup 39 years ago, did nothing for the violations of human rights in the country," said Ashour Al Sosi, editor of the New Libya electronic newspaper.
He said it seems that the US is ready to scrap the rogue regime tag and scrap objections to human rights violations the moment it gets what it wants from rogue regimes.
Mohammad Zahi Mogherbi, Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences at Garyounis University in Libya told Gulf News, "It is a historic visit by all means and it marks a new chapter in the relations between the two nations.
"I think leaders in both Libya and US have realised that the confrontationist attitude adopted in the past have failed to come up with the intended results. They have rather aggravated the situation and achieved none of their goals."
But Juma Bal Kheir, head of the General Directorate of Foreign Media at the Information Office (Ministry of Information) said it is still early to judge the outcome of Rice's visit to Libya and if such a visit would ease the tensed relations between the two countries or not.
Big push
"Libya gave away whatever it could to normalise relations with the US and the Western bloc and would like to see its efforts resulting in a genuine openness towards the West. There are some developments in Libya's relations with some European countries like France and Italy, but the relations with the US still need a big push.
"I hope the visit of Rice will offer the relation the steam it requires to move on and compensate for four decades of confrontation," Bal Kheir said
Dr Said Laswad, Editor-in-Chief of the Tripoli Post English daily, told Gulf News that the Libyans see the visit as a victory of their leaders' diplomatic efforts and they are happy to see an end of a fierce conflict in the history of the nation.
I think leaders in both Libya and US have realised that the confrontationist attitude adopted in the past has failed to come up with the intended results."
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