The United States, apparently caught off hand by Libya's comments concerning its compensation to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, immediately got tough and demanded Tripoli retract such comments as the warming-up of bilateral ties was dealt a blow as a result.

In an interview with BBC, Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem claimed that the US$2.7 billion Libya agreed to pay to the families of the Lockerbie victims was to buy peace with the West.

"We thought it was easier for us to buy peace and this is why we agreed to compensation," Ghanem said.

"Therefore, we said, 'let us buy peace, let us put the whole case behind us and let us look forward'," Ghanem said.

Ghanem was echoed by Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Rahman Mohammed Shalgam who on Tuesday refused to claim responsibility for the Lockerbie crash that killed 270 people on board.

"Libya accepts responsibility for the action and activities of its officials. We did not say we accepted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am," Shalgam said at a press conference.

The United States reacted immediately and bluntly demanded Libya explain and retract such comments.

"I would make clear that we have seen these statements by the prime minister. We should expect a retraction from the Libyan government," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher at a news briefing on Tuesday.

Boucher said that Libya, as demanded by the United States, formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in a letter to the United Nations Security Council on Aug. 15 last year.

Therefore, "this current statement is impossible to reconcile with that earlier written statement, which was said to be authoritative. So we would expect the Libyans to explain the matter and to retract this current statement," Boucher said.

On Dec. 21, 1988, a Boeing 747 passenger plane from the Pan-Am airline crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. Britain and the United States held Libyan intelligence officials responsible for the crash.

In 1999, Libya said it would surrender two suspects plotting the Lockerbie incident and former Libyan secret service agent Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2001 for his role in the attack.

As a reward, Britain restored diplomatic relations with Libya in 1999 after 15 years of stagnation. The United Nations has also decided to lift the sanctions on Libya.

To the welcome of Washington, Libya announced in December to scrap its program of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction. Bilateral relations witnessed further detente.

The United States has decided to ease the economic sanctions imposed on Tripoli for over 20 years and re-establish diplomatic presence in Libya.

Moreover, Washington has been expected to ease the ban on Americans' travel to the oil-rich North African country.

All of a sudden, the mending of relations between Washington and Tripoli took an abrupt turn as the United States temporarily froze the lifting of the travel ban to Libya and was not prepared to expand its diplomatic presence in Tripoli.

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2004)