Blair hails Gadaffy

Tony Blair today cast aside 20 years of bitterness towards Libya over the Lockerbie bombing and murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher.

Mr Blair saluted the "courage" of Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffy and announced he will meet him tomorrow for the first time, welcoming the country back to international acceptability.

The pair will clasp hands in a traditional Arab tent at Tripoli and are expected to greet each other with a kiss on both cheeks.

Mr Blair will tonight hail the meeting as a

result of Colonel Gadaffy's decision to renounce his nuclear arms programme and end sponsorship of terrorists.

And he will say in a speech in Lisbon: "Let us offer to states that want to renounce terrorism and the development of weapons of mass destruction our hand in partnership to achieve it, as Libya has rightly and courageously decided to do.

"That is not forgetting the pain of the past. But it does mean recognising it is time to move on." The talks are the result of months of painstaking diplomacy triggered by an approach to Britain from Colonel Gadaffy's son just before the invasion of Iraq.

But there was controversy at home where Tory leader Michael Howard claimed the meeting would cause "considerable distress" to the families of the 270 people killed at Lockerbie in 1988. Mr Howard questioned the timing of the meeting so soon after Mr Blair today attended a memorial service for the victims of the Madrid bombings. Mr Howard said: "It is quite odd timing to go from a service which commemorates the victims of the biggest terrorist attack on Europe since Lockerbie, to go straight from there to Libya."

He was promptly contradicted, however, by the spokesman for the Flight 103 families, Jim Swire, who declared his wholehearted support for the talks and praised Mr Blair for striving to turn a former sponsor of terrorism towards peace.

Mr Blair will compare the rehabilitation of Colonel Gadaffy with the Northern Ireland peace process, which has seen reviled IRA terrorists allowed into power-sharing government.

"I came to Spain yesterday from Northern Ireland where we have worked so hard, for so long, to bring a peace in place of terrorism," he will say. I believe in turning to negotiation where negotiation can achieve peace on honourable terms." In his speech he will contrast Colonel Gadaffy's willingness to talk with the "religious fanatics" of al Qaeda who, he will say, "have no demands we can negotiate with, honourably or otherwise".

He will urge: "At this time, with the tragedy of Madrid in our minds, let us unite, put aside our differences, refuse to be divided by terrorism and express our strength and confidence in our own way of life which we will defend to the end."

The historic handshake with Colonel Gadaffy will come at the start of a two-hour meeting on the outskirts of Tripoli. The diplomatic breakthrough will mean more jobs and exports for the UK and military aid for Libya, British officials disclosed this afternoon.

Eventually, the international arms embargo will be lifted allowing Colonel Gadaffy to purchase modern military hardware.

But officials are not expecting any breakthrough on the hunt for the killer of Pc Fletcher, the 25-year-old shot dead by a marksman in the Libyan embassy in 1984.

She had been policing a demonstration outside the embassy when the shots were fired - but her killer walked free with diplomatic immunity after a siege.

Colonel Gadaffy promised to pay compensation but there has been little hope of the full story emerging, despite a renewed investigation by Scotland Yard. Two men were tried under Scottish law in a special court in the Netherlands and one of them was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Queenie Fletcher, 70, the mother of Pc Fletcher today claimed Mr Blair's meeting with Colonel Gadaffy would not deliver justice.

Mrs Fletcher, who has campaigned for 20 years and has met Colonel Gadaffy, said she doubted it would uncover the identity of the killer.

She added: "I am not optimistic that Gadaffy meeting Blair will lead to my daughter's killer being

named. Gadaffy says one thing and does another, I doubt he will reveal anything. It makes me angry, because I have heard it all before and it has gone on too long. I want to see justice but how many times has the question been asked? I just hope that things can be sorted out because I am frustrated by the whole thing."

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke to Mrs Fletcher to inform her about the meeting. Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram wrote to Mr Blair urging him to seek firm guarantees from Colonel Gadaffy over " outstanding" issues including the murder of Pc Fletcher, Lockerbie, Libya's links to the IRA and its support of Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe.

He added: "Welcome as Libya's commitment to disarmament is, we should never forget the victims of Gadaffy's sponsorship of terrorism.

In Madrid today Mr Blair met Spain's newly-elected premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for private talks but made little progress on his mission to persuade Spain's new government not to carry out its threat to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

British officials said Mr Blair recognised that Mr Zapatero had made a strong commitment to withdraw from the coalition in his election campaign.

Meanwhile, it emerged today that Mr Blair will fly to America to lend support to George Bush in his fight to win a second term as US president.

The Prime Minister will stay as President Bush's guest in what will be seen as an extraordinary display of support.

It is thought to be the first time a Labour Prime Minister has thrown his weight behind a Rightwing Republican during a US presidential election.