TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - A Libyan official said Thursday that Moammar Gadhafi's long-isolated country has signed contracts worth $405 million with French companies for missiles and communications equipment. A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy would not confirm the deal but said there appeared to be one. French officials denied that any deal to sell military equipment was in exchange for Libya's releasing six imprisoned medics last month.
| What's the French word for 'perfidy' again? |
The first contract, worth $230 million, is for Milan missiles, and the second, totaling $175 million, is for advanced Tetra communications and surveillance equipment for the police, said the Libyan official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. He did not reveal the names of the French companies.
The official said the deal is important because it is the first of its kind that Libya has signed with a Western country since sanctions were imposed in the early 1990s.
David Martinon, spokesman for Sarkozy, refused to confirm the contracts during an appearance late Thursday evening on France's LCI television. ``I do not confirm,'' Martinon said. But he added, ``I imagine it to be true.'' The spokesman did not give the names of the French companies involved, but suggested one was the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.
| Looks like the Libyans didn't want the A380 and got missiles instead. |
``It is not my job to speak about the commercial dealings of a company like EADS, which appears to have concluded this deal,'' he said.
| No relation to the French gummint at all, no sir, nope, none, other than that the gummint owns 50% of EADS now, but other than that ... |
Martinon insisted that no arms contract was signed during Sarkozy's visit to Tripoli last week, the day after the release of the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor. He said there was ``no compensation of that sort by France'' for the release of the medics, who had been imprisoned 8 years for allegedly infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus.
Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, told the French daily Le Monde that a deal had been concluded involving the sale of French Milan anti-tank missiles for an estimated $137 million, as well as a deal on the joint Franco-Libyan manufacture of military equipment. He also spoke of an agreement to conduct joint military exercises, adding this would be Libya's first military deal with a Western nation, according to Le Monde. |