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03-01-2005- (WARSAW) Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka is to travel to Libya on Wednesday for a two-day visit that will include talks on Polish-Libyan cooperation in the oil sector, officials said here.
"Poland is looking to diversify its sources of gas and oil supplies and Libya could become a potential source," said deputy foreign minister Boguslaw Zaleski.
Belka will be accompanied by a large delegation from the Polish oil industry.
Poland is anxious to re-establish the close economic ties it had with Libya when the Communist Party was in power here in the 1970s and 1980s.
In those two decades, some 130,000 Poles worked in Libya on road and rail development projects and many Libyans pursued their studies in Poland, according to Zaleski.
The two countries are also trying to resolve the question of Poland's 30-million-dollar debt to Libya, which dates from the 1970-1980s.
Zaleski said that in addition "we will discuss claims made by Polish companies that could amount to 88 million dollars."
Belka will confer with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi during the visit and
will also raise the situation of five Bulgarian nurses condemned to death in
Libya on charges of having provoked an outbreak of AIDS there.
Zaleski added that Poland, which joined the European Union last May, is taking part in overall steps launched in 2004 to rebuild Libyan-EU relations. Read More News |
