Libya admitts responsibility at UN security council; Washington abstains from voting, keeps sanctions

The UN sanctions crisis imposed on Libya has reached the final phase for solution yesterday with the confirmation made by American officials that Tripoli gave a message of recognition to the UN Security Council in which it vows to "accept responsibility for the acts of its officials" in the blowing up incident of the Pan Am plane over the Scottish Lockerbie town in 1988.

In recognition of Libya's acceptance of responsibility for its actions in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Scotland in 1988, the United States announced yesterday that "it will not oppose the lifting of United Nations sanctions on Libya...The Libyan regime's behavior -- including its poor human rights record and lack of democratic institutions, its destructive role in perpetuating regional conflicts in Africa, and its continued and worrisome pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their related delivery systems -- remains a cause for serious concern," a White House statement said.

The statement said the United States "will intensify its efforts to end threatening elements of Libya's behavior, and U.S. bilateral sanctions on Libya will remain in full force until Libya addresses these concerns."

Libya, it said, "must also continue to take definitive action to assist in the fight against international terrorism."

It is not clear if this is an admission of Libya's active planning of this incident or has been accepted by Libya merely to break the isolation it has been suffering as Libya had always maintained that it was not involved in the incident and that the alleged proof against it was the "size of a postage stamp" as the Voice of America has quoted the Libya leader saying, a reference to an electronic microchip that supposedly was a key evidence claimed by the US and the UK to link the crime to Libya.