Libya gets early turn at the top of Security Council

UNITED NATIONS - A Libyan took over as president of the Security Council yesterday, capping Libya's climb back to respectability. But its ambassador said the nation's past ordeal under U.N. sanctions put it "in a very difficult position when we speak about imposing sanctions against another country."

The rapid ascent of Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi to the revolving council presidency for January - the first month Libya has ever been allowed on the council - is a remarkable turnabout for a nation long seen as a sponsor of terrorism.

Ettalhi said Libya's past as an international outcast would make it reluctant to impose U.N. sanctions.

The council, which oversees global peace and security, is the only U.N. body whose decisions are binding on all members. Only the United States, China, France, Russia and Britain have veto power; the 10 other countries are elected to two-year terms.

Among the council's tools are economic sanctions, arms embargoes, financial sanctions, travel bans and military actions.

The job of president requires setting the month's agenda and running council meetings, but it does not give an ambassador automatic entry into talks exclusive to the most powerful members.

Also yesterday, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the highest-level contact between Libya and the United States in Washington in 35 years.

President Ronald Reagan, who sent U.S. bombers to Libya in 1986 after its attack on a West Berlin disco, once called Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi an "enemy" and a sponsor of terrorism from Europe to Africa to the Middle East. Gadhafi came to power in a military coup in 1969.

The United States put Libya on a list of sponsors of terrorism and imposed sanctions barring U.S. companies from doing business there. Oil-rich Libya also was ostracized by U.N. sanctions after the deadly 1988 bombing of an airliner over Scotland, but began moving back into the international fold with its 2003 decisions to pay reparations to families of the victims and to dismantle its nuclear-arms program.

The Security Council voted in 2003 to lift the U.N. sanctions, and the United States resumed full diplomatic relations with Libya in 2007, though concerns remain about human rights and terrorism.