Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Libyan leader
Moamer Gaddafi agreed on deals worth more than 10 billion euros (14.6
billion dollars) Monday, the first day of Gaddafi's controversial
five-day state visit to France.
The agreements were signed following a state dinner hosted by
Sarkozy in Gaddafi's honour, and include an accord of cooperation on
the peaceful use of nuclear energy by Libya.
In addition, France was contracted to deliver one or more nuclear
reactors to Libya to be used in a seawater desalinization plant.
Contracts were also signed by Libyan Airlines and Afriqiyah
Airways for the purchase of 21 Airbus planes, including 10 A350 XWBs,
a long-haul aircraft Airbus is developing to compete with the Boeing
787 Dreamliner.
France also agreed to provide Libya with a variety of military
equipment.
Earlier Monday, shortly after the Libyan leader arrived in Paris,
Sarkozy fiercely defended Gaddafi in the face of criticism regarding
the visit.
'Today, France is welcoming a head of state who decided
definitively to renounce weapons of mass destruction,' Sarkozy told
journalists after a one-hour meeting with Gaddafi at the Elysee
Palace.
'France is welcoming a head of state who definitively renounced
terrorism - a head of state who has compensated the victims' of
Libyan state-sponsored terrorist acts, Sarkozy said.
The French president said Libya wanted to become a full-fledged
member of the international community. 'It is my deepest conviction
that France must speak with all those who want to be integrated in
the international community,' he said.
Apparently unfazed by the controversy that preceded his arrival in
Paris, a smiling Gaddafi shook hands with Sarkozy and waved to
journalists before entering the Elysee Palace.
His trip to France has provoked an angry debate, with
even members of Sarkozy's government openly critical of the visit.
In an interview published Monday in the daily Le Parisien, Junior
Minister for Human Rights Rama Yade fiercely criticized the date of
the visit, which begins on World Human Rights Day, and said she would
not take part in the state dinner Sarkozy was hosting for Gaddafi
later Monday.
'Colonel Gaddafi must understand that our country is not a doormat
on which a leader, terrorist or not, can clean his bloody feet of
their infamy,' Yade told the daily.
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also appeared to distance
himself from the visit, telling France Inter radio he was 'resigned'
to Gaddafi's coming to France and hoped that it would help speed up
the 'evolution' in Libya.
Apparently shaken by the controversy, Sarkozy felt compelled to
defend his own human rights record, saying that he and his government
had freed the Bulgarian nurses who had been sentenced to death by a
Libyan court for infecting children with AIDS.
'France liberated them,' Sarkozy said. 'I demanded it and I
obtained it.'
He also noted that he was the only French president to openly
demand, at a press conference in Beijing, that China outlaw the death
penalty.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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