No oil deal but agreement possible by October

The "breakthrough" on joint exploration with Libya which the government sought to secure did not translate into an imminent deal during talks between President Eddie Fenech Adami and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi yesterday but talks should lead to a definitive solution by October. The deal would resolve a long-standing dispute over the potentially oil-rich zones on the marine borders which both countries say belong to them.

Dr Fenech Adami said shortly after the meeting that "there is the political will to reach an agreement on how to proceed... "

The mixed commission of experts which has been meeting to thrash out the technical aspects of a potential joint venture is scheduled to meet again in October. By then, Dr Fenech Adami pointed out, the government is hoping to have a political decision, which could be sealed during a visit Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is expected to make to Libya over the next couple of months.

An hour-long meeting over lunch, held in a Bedouin tent set in Col Gaddafi's fortified compound in Tripoli, was followed by another meeting by the President, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg and Social Policy Minister John Dalli with Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi and Foreign Minister Abdulrahman Shalgam. An oil agreement between the two countries would resolve one of the thorniest disputes Malta has ever had with Libya. The matter reached fever pitch in the early 1980s when the Libyan authorities dispatched a gunboat to stop an Italian oil rig commissioned by the Maltese government from drilling in the Medina Bank.

There has been a vague understanding that the way forward would be joint exploration rather than taking the matter to the international courts again but the significance of yesterday's development is that it comes from the country's supreme authority: Col. Gaddafi himself.

A broad road map was also agreed upon to secure a deal in the coming weeks for increased cooperation on search and rescue mission with regard to illegal immigration and over the disputed fishing conservation zone declared by Libya in 2005.

On these points, however, both the President and Dr Borg were rather dry in their comments.

The fishing conservation zone declared by Libya had been disputed by the government from the start, both at an EU and a bilateral level, on grounds that the conservation area encroached on the historic fishing grounds of Maltese fishermen.

On this point, the President would only say that the government is seeking "a final interpretation of the border".

With regard to the search and rescue area, Dr Borg said his Libyan counterpart agreed to hold a meeting in Malta with their Italian counterpart in the coming months. "The idea is to increase cooperation on search and rescue," he said, adding, when asked, that the talks deal with the EU's search and rescue mission Frontex, which Libya has severely criticised in the past months.

As expected, there was no mention during the talks about the agreement Libya signed with France just over two weeks ago for cooperation on nuclear energy, reportedly intended to power a series of desalination plants Libya intends to built.

Over the past weeks there were radioactive leaks in three separate nuclear stations in France. Nonetheless, Dr Fenech Adami said that the government "did not feel that this is an issue we should go into for the time being".