Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s assertion that he no longer is sponsoring terrorist groups won little sympathy from the State Department last week.
“We want to see irrevocable actions, not pronouncements or short-term adjustments that can be reversed,” department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said on Oct. 26.
She was responding to remarks Gadhafi made in an interview with the Cairo weekly magazine Al Mussawar. The Libyan strongman said he had previously supported some terrorist groups because he believed they could help the Arab cause.
“But we found out that they were practicing terrorism for the sake of terrorism and for other objectives that had nothing to do with our national cause,” he told the magazine.
However, Tutwiler pointed out that “as it stands today, the notorious Abu Nidal organization is still headquartered in Tripoli, and Libya still has close ties with Abu Nidal.
“Furthermore Libya is still supplying funds, weapons, safe havens and training facilities to such groups as the Japanese Red Army, the Provisional IRA, the PFLP-GC and other terrorist groups.”
The IRA is the Irish Republican Army, and the PFLP-GC is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
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