Tripoli said this evening that it had dropped its ban on granting visas to Europeans living in the Schengen zone, after the EU presidency announced a reciprocal move for Libyan travellers.

The announcement brings to an end a dispute lasting almost a month and a half which had affected hundreds of Maltese workers and businessmen (and travellers from all over Europe) who were not allowed access to Libya.

The Libyan ban had been imposed as retaliation to a Schengen area blacklist drawn up by Switzerland against Libyan officials.

But Spain's Foreign Ministry said earlier today in a statement that it regretted that the Libyans had been blacklisted for travel to the Schengen passport-free zone and said the blacklist had now been scrapped.

"All the names of the Libyan citizens included in the list of the Schengen information system have been removed," the ministry said in a statement.

Spain currently holds the presidency of the EU.

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg in comments to timesofmalta.com expressed his satisfaction that the issue had been resolved.

He said that Malta had twice raised the issue at the meetings of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers on February 22 and March 22 and it had been in regular contact with Libyan European Affairs Minister Abdallah Obeidi, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel AngelMoratinos.

"We never interfered in the domestic issues which led to this disute, but we insisted that other countries shuold not be held hostage, we defended our own national interest," Dr Borg said.

Malta had warned that unless the blacklist was removed and the issue was resolved by April 5, it would bypass Schengen and start issuing limited territory visas to Libyan nationals valid for countries which joined it in such an arrangement.Italy and Spain had backed the Maltese position.

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