A planned Security Council vote to lift UN sanctions imposed on Libya over the 1988 bombing of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, may be delayed after France today renewed a threat to block the move.
Just minutes before the scheduled vote, France said it had asked current council president Britain to postpone the vote to allow a settlement to be reached in a parallel issue of Libyan compensation for the bombing of a French UTA airliner in 1989.
Council members went into private consultations to decide what to do, with indications that a delay for a least one day was in the offing. "Everyone agrees to have resolution rather than failed resolution," a British diplomat said.
As the discussions went on, 53 families of victims in the Pan Am 103 crash over Lockerbie sat patiently in the Security Council gallery waiting for diplomats to appear and vote.
In Paris, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said earlier in the day, "In the absence of a fair agreement between the families (of the UTA victims) and the Libyan side - which seems at this stage to be within reach -- France would have no other choice than to oppose the draft resolution (to lift sanctions).
