It also may have been a recognition of Britain's support in recent years for greater engagement with Libya, long an international outcast accused of supporting terrorism, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988 ? 15 years ago Sunday. That bombing killed 270 people.
"This is a major victory in the war against terror and a personal triumph for Tony Blair and for British diplomacy," said George Foulkes, a lawmaker from Blair's Labor Party. "I hope those who have been all too ready to criticize him in the past will now be big enough to come out and publicly acknowledge this success."
Until Friday, the United States treated Libya as a kind of junior member of Bush's "axis of evil" comprising Iran, North Korea (news - web sites) and prewar Iraq.
Britain, by contrast, resumed diplomatic relations with the north African nation on July 7, 1999 ? 15 years after cutting ties when London police constable Yvonne Fletcher was killed by gunfire from the Libyan "People's Bureau," as its London embassy was called.
Relations warmed further this year, when Tripoli accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing (news - web sites) and Britain introduced a successful U.N. resolution lifting sanctions imposed in 1992.
