LIBYA, ITALY AGREE TO REACTIVATE FRIENDSHIP TREATY

TRIPOLI: Italy and Libya have agreed to reactivate the 2008 Friendship Treaty signed a decade ago that allowed migrants to be returned to Libyan territory. The original treaty was signed by former Libyan dictator Moumar Kadhafi and Italy’s then prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, as they sought to turn a page on 40 years of stormy relations between the North African country and its former coloniser. But the deal was suspended in February 2011, after the start of the uprising that saw Kadhafi forced from power and killed. The original treaty envisaged unlocking $ 5 billion ( 4.2 billion euros) of Italian investment in Libya as compensation for colonization by Rome. In exchange, Libya would work to stop illegal migrants embarking from its shores — and receive those sent back to the north African country, a clause lambasted by human rights activists. The two ministers did not say if the text of the reactivated treaty had been amended.