President Putin to visit Libya

The Russian President Vladimir Putin is to visit Libya.

He accepted an invitation to Tripoli during talks in Moscow with the Libyan Foreign Minister, Abdel Rahman Shalgham.

No date has been fixed for the visit.

A Kremlin official says Mr Shalgham's meeting with Mr Putin did not cover military cooperation.

But the offical said this will be on the agenda for the Mr Shalgham's talks with the Russian Deputy Prime Minster, Ilya Klebanov.

Russia resumed economic and diplomatic ties with Libya in May last year, after the United Nations security Council lifted its seven-year-old sanctions against the country. The lifting of the embargo was prompted by Libya's handing over of two suspects to face trial for the bombing of a Pan Am passenger aircraft over Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988.

Two hundred and seventy people died.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service