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| Africa North |
| Crisis with Switzerland not yet resolved: Libya |
| 2010-03-29 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] The diplomatic crisis between Libya and Switzerland still runs deep and can only be resolved through international arbitration, Libyan Foreign Minister Mussa Kussa told AFP on Sunday. "We demand international arbitration," to resolve the dispute with Switzerland, "and we will accept any outcome, positive or negative," said Kussa. He was speaking a day after Libya and the European Union scrapped visa bans on each others' citizens that were imposed amid a bitter row between Tripoli and Berne over the arrest in Geneva in 2008 of a son of Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi. Asked if the lifting of the bans meant that the crisis with Berne was over, Kussa said: "No, that is another thing altogether." Switzerland and Libya have been embroiled in a diplomatic row since July 2008 after the brief arrest in Geneva of Ghaddafi's son Hannibal when two workers complained he had mistreated them. The dispute escalated when Libya detained two Swiss businessmen and later put them on trial in two separate cases of visa violations and fraudulent business. One was acquitted and released but the second, Max Goeldi, is serving a four-month sentence in a Libyan jail. Switzerland hit back by issuing a blacklist containing the names of 188 prominent Libyans, including Ghaddafi and members of his family from entering the Schengen zone. Libya retaliated by banning citizens from the 25-member Schengen zone from travelling to the north African country. |
| Posted by:Fred |