By Sue Pleming
LISBON (Reuters) - Condoleezza Rice travels to Libya onFriday, the first trip there by a U.S. secretary of state in 55years, signalling improved ties between the two countries.
Relations began to warm after Libya gave up its weapons ofmass destruction program in 2003, but Rice held back onvisiting the former pariah state until a compensation packagewas signed last month to cover legal claims involving victimsof U.S. and Libyan bombings.
In her brief trip, Rice is set to meet Libyan leaderMuammar Gaddafi and share Iftar with him -- the meal forbreaking the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Once called "the mad dog of the Middle East" by PresidentRonald Reagan, U.S. officials said Rice was looking forward tothe encounter with Gaddafi and planned, among other issues, toraise human rights concerns as well as regional conflicts inChad, Sudan and the recent coup in Mauritania.
Her spokesman Sean McCormack called the trip to Libya a"historic stop". The last secretary of state to go there wasJohn Foster Dulles in May 1953, before Rice was even born.
Rice, who is going to Libya after an overnight stop inLisbon, Portugal, is also expected to push Gaddafi on thecompensation deal signed on August 14.
No funds have been paid into it yet but lead U.S.negotiator with Libya, David Welch, said he was optimistic itwould happen soon.
Libya finalized legalities to set up the fund on Wednesdayand one senior U.S. official said it would take "more thandays" before enough money was in the account and payments couldbe made to both sides.
NO MONEY IN FUND
No details have been given over who will put money into thefund or how much it will amount to but outstanding legal claimscould run into billions.
U.S. victims covered include those who died in the 1988bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, whichkilled 270 people, and the 1986 attack on a Berlin disco thatkilled three people and wounded 229.
It also compensates Libyans killed in 1986 when U.S. planesbombed Tripoli and Benghazi. Forty people died.
Rice has come under some domestic U.S. criticism for makingthe trip before the money was paid out. Rights groups are alsocritical because some cases, including that of ailing politicaldissident Fathi el-Jahmi, have not been resolved despite U.S.pressure.
Jahmi's brother Mohamed El-Jahmi, who lives in the UnitedStates near Boston, said Rice was wrong to see Gaddafi whilehis brother, a former provincial governor, was held in a"bugged, cockroach-ridden" hospital room and his family hadvery limited access to him.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden haspersonally taken up Jahmi's case and Mohamed el-Jahmi said hehoped Rice would follow the senator's lead and do the same.
"The secretary of state is now going to provide legitimacyto a dictator. She knows fully that my brother could bekilled," he told Reuters.
Rice may sign a trade and investment deal during her visitbut experts say the main message is to signal a new era inU.S.-Libyan relations that have been marked by decades ofmistrust and violence.
After going to Tripoli, Rice is set to visit Tunisia,Algeria and Morocco before returning to Washington on September7.
