Condoleezza Rice, 26 Aug 2008

Senior U.S. officials have disclosed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will pay a historic visit to Libya next month.

The disclosure Tuesday came just weeks after the U.S. and Libya signed an agreement to compensate American victims of Libyan-backed terrorist attacks during the 1980s. 

Rice has said she looks forward to visiting Libya now that relations between the two countries have been normalized.

Her visit will mark the first time a U.S. secretary of state will visit Libya since the 1950s. 

In mid-August, the U.S. and Libya agreed on plans to compensate the U.S. victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan American flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, and a Berlin nightclub bombing two years earlier.  The deal also compensates Libyans who were killed in 1986 in U.S. revenge attacks on Tripoli and Benghazi.

The agreement also gives Libya immunity against further lawsuits related to the attacks.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP.