Libya welcomes lifting of U.S. travel ban

SIRTE, Libya -- Libya on Friday welcomed the lifting of a long-standing ban on U.S. travel to the North African country and said it would start destroying bombs designed to carry chemical weapons.

"Positive, positive," Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said in response to a question about the lifting of the U.S. travel ban. "The wheel started to roll," he told The Associated Press outside a pan-African summit being held in the coastal city of Sirte.

It was the first official Libyan reaction to Washington's decision Thursday to lift the travel restrictions, imposed 23 years ago when the United States considered Tripoli a sponsor of state terrorism.

In lifting of the travel ban, the United States also invited American companies to begin planning their return to Libya and encouraged Tripoli to establish an official presence in Washington by opening an "interests section," a diplomatic office a level beneath an embassy. The United States also will expand its diplomatic presence in Tripoli.

Libya's relations with the United States have dramatically improved in recent months after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi pledged to give up Tripoli's quest for weapons of mass destruction. The Libyan government also cleared an obstacle to lifting the travel ban when it reaffirmed this week that it was responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Asked Friday whether Libya would start destroying bombs intended to deliver chemical weapons, Shalqam replied, "Yes, yes," before he walked away.

A statement by the world's chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said earlier that Libya on Friday would begin destroying around 3,300 bombs intended as vehicles for chemical weapons.

Rogelio Pfirter, director of the organization, said the destruction of the bombs "is a very positive step and a confirmation of Libya's intention to actually get rid of prohibited weapons."

The OPCW, which is based in the Hague, Netherlands, said it couldn't say more about the nature of the munitions other than that they were "intended for delivery" of chemical weapons.