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Diplomat: Vote on lifting Libya sanctions delayedFrance requested delay; wants more money for bombing victims
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- A vote on a resolution lifting United Nations sanctions against Libya was delayed until Friday at the request of France, diplomats told CNN. France had said Tuesday it would veto any resolution to lift U.N. sanctions on Libya if a new settlement has not been reached between the North African country and families of victims of a 1989 French airliner bombing. A vote to lift the sanctions originally had been scheduled for Tuesday morning. At the request of the French, Britain -- which currently holds the U.N. Security Council presidency and has authored the draft resolution to lift the sanctions -- initially delayed the vote until early Tuesday afternoon. A French UTA DC-10 blew up over the Niger desert on September 19, 1989, killing 170 people. Libya never admitted responsibility in the UTA bombing, but it paid victims' families $34 million in 1999 after a French court convicted six Libyans in absentia in the attack. A push for more compensation for UTA victims' families came after Libya announced a $2.7 billion deal for relatives of victims of the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. Under the terms of that deal, Libya would accept responsibility and pay each family as much as $10 million, contingent on the lifting of U.N. and U.S. sanctions. If only the U.N. sanctions are lifted, each family would get $4 million. After the Pan Am settlement, French officials said the UTA deal was inadequate -- and that families of French victims deserved more. That agreement gave each victim's family just under $200,000. "If no agreement has been settled between the families and the Libyans, France would have no other choice than to oppose the draft resolution," a French official said Tuesday. "We have asked for a postponement to give time for the possibility of a settlement." A French Foreign Ministry official said Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin asked British Foreign Minister Jack Straw "to delay the vote to allow a satisfactory solution to be reached for all." The U.N. sanctions were imposed in 1992 to put pressure on Libya to turn over suspects in the Lockerie bombing. In an agreement struck among the governments of Libya, the United States and Britain, sanctions would be lifted once Libya agreed to pay compensation, accepted responsibility for the bombing and renounced terrorism. France, a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power, sees the planned vote on sanctions as the best way to maintain pressure on Libya to provide a similar payment for the UTA families. Libya announced earlier that it would increase compensation in the UTA case, but the deal has yet to be finalized with the French government.
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