Tunis, Thursday
LIBYA today denounced Prime Minister John Major's speech at the Middle East peace summit in which he accused Tripoli of promoting terrorism.
``The mention of Libya's name by the named John Major, Prime Minister of the minority in Britain, is untrue,'' said Libya's Foreign Affairs Minister Omar al-Montasser.
Mr Major, in a speech at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit yesterday, took aim at Libya and Iran as promoters of terrorism.
``Don't let us forget where the core of this problem lies,'' he told the conference, held in response to Muslim militant bomb attacks on Israel.
``I hope we will send from this conference a very clear call to those countries to abandon those vicious policies.......We spelled it out to Iran, we spelled it out to Libya,'' the Prime Minister said.
However Libyan Foreign Affairs Minister Omar al-Montasser said the mention of Libya was ``untrue''.
Al-Montasser said he was convinced that Britain would not change its stance towards Libya whatever it does.
``The fact that Libya stopped its support to the Irish Republican Army and that it offered all the information and turned over the page did not affect the sublime historical (British) stance,'' he said.
``Christianity is against Islam and Europeans are against Arabs. Crusades are crusades. Racism is racism,'' he added.
In recent years, Libya has answered questions about its links with the IRA in what Britain called a positive step towards complying with United Nations resolutions to renounce terrorism.
Despite international sanctions, Libya has refused to hand over two Libyan suspects to Britain or the United States to stand trial for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.
Al-Montasser said: ``It has become very clear that even if Libya surrended its sons for trial in Britain, Britain's position would not change. (Major's) statement makes any rational person in the world wonder in surprise.''
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