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17 February 2005, 13:39 GMT
Libya Withdraws $1 Billion Assets Frozen in US
15/12/2004 14:41:00
The Libyan Central Bank has withdrawn $1 billion of assets which had been frozen for almost two decades in the United States on Washington's orders, a Libyan central bank official said Wednesday.
The previously frozen assets, which have been invested in various countries, are believed to include equity holdings in banks. The original size of the funds was about $400 million, Central Bank Vice-President Farhat Omar Ben Gdara told Reuters.
"This (transfer) process was completed within the last two weeks," he said.
Bankers from the two countries have this year been discussing ways to unfreeze these assets.
"This process does not mean we severed our relations with the banks in the United States," Ben Gdara said. "We are in the process of opening accounts in banks in the United States."
The U.S. administration of President Ronald Reagan ordered the 1986 halt to economic and commercial relations with Tripoli, freezing Libyan assets in the United States, after a series of what Washington viewed as Libyan-sponsored terrorist acts.
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