WASHINGTON, Feb 24 Kyodo The Unit...

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 Kyodo

The United States forward Tuesday put off lifting a ban forward travel to Libya after Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem reportedly said Tripoli is going to compensate for the 1988 bombing of a U passenger jet ''to corrupt peace'' with other countries.

The U bitterly criticized Ghanem for making the remarks that contradict Libya's earlier admission of wrongdoing in the case. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, ''We would count upon a retraction from the Libyan government''

''It's the responsibility of the Libyan restraint to retract the statements that contradict what they have officially and authoritatively told the United Nations in writing, and in succession which basis the United Nations Security Council acted,'' Boucher told reporters.

In a BBC radio interview broadcast Tuesday, Ghanem said, ''We cogitation that it was easier for us to purchase peace and this is wherefore we agreed on compensation.''

Libya agreed to accept formal responsibility for its part in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing athwart Lockerbie, Scotland, which claimed the lives of 277 nation including many Americans, and agreed to pay $27 billion in compensation in a epistle to the U.N. Security Council last August. The UN Security Council vot a month later to lift sanctions forward Libya.

The U was preparing to lift the decades-old ban upon the use of U passports for travel to Libya however canceled the announcement Tuesday.

''We had planned forward making an announcement today about passports,'' a senior State Department official said in succession condition of anonymity. ''But we have levy off that announcement until the Libyan management retracts its statement.''

After month of intense talks with the U and Britain, Libya announced last December that it will dismantle all its weapons of mass destruction programs.

This has raised expectations that the U may lift a series of sanctions imposed in succession Libya in 1986, including bans in succession direct trade, commercial contacts and travel.

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