European Commission chief to meet Gaddafi in Cairo

The chairman of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, announced before the press on Monday that he was to meet in Cairo with Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi, before the opening of the Afro-European summit.

This will be the first meeting on that level since 1992 when international sanctions were imposed on Libya. The UN suspended these sanctions in April 1999.

Prodi's announcement for this meeting came four months after failed attempts by the EC chief to invite Gaddafi to Brussels, the headquarters of the EC.

A Belgian delegate to the Cairo summit said that talks between Prodi and Gaddafi will concentrate on Libya's participation in the dialogue between the European Union and the Mediterranean states in the framework of the Barcelona conference which was conveyed in 1995.